I would like to take a moment to let you know why our company, Advantage Micro Corporation, had to choose avast! over other anti-virus products like AVG, McAfee, Norton and Symantec – products that we had been selling for 20 years. During February 2002, we had over 100 computers come into our office for service. Our clients reported that their computers were too slow to use. Our usual virus scans with existing antivirus software were not finding any infections in these machines. However, further investigation found that each system had multiple Trojan “infections.” Our technicians came to the conclusion that virtually all...
Blog Archives
Facebook’s hidden settings exposed!
I logged into Facebook yesterday, and up popped a message ” You have sent to many “friend requests” to people you do not know! WOW, I never send friend requests, ever! How the hell? After some research, I found “friend request settings” and it was set to “everyone” (1st icon on the Facebook toolbar) I changed this to “friends of friends”, but I don’t want to send requests to them either, so the culprit has to be somewhere else! I next looked under accounts (last icon on the Facebook toolbar) and then “Apps” Low and behold, there were over 10...
Managing avast Endpoint Protection Suite using the avast Enterprise Administration console (AEA)
This article is the 4th in a series that were written by Che Johnson (Avast Software Technical Support) and J.R. Guthrie (avast Sales and Support Specialist from Advantage Micro Corporation). We spent over a year writing this series of “Managing avast Endpoint Protection” documents to make installations easier. These URLs are for avast! Endpoint Protection Suite using the avast Enterprise Administrator console. avast! Enterprise Administration console (AEA) The AEA console is required when managing 200+ systems. This Enterprise console is the most powerful anti-virus management tool in the industry. For those of you that have previously used ADNM (previous version 4 of the Enterprise console with blue icon),...
Managing avast Endpoint Protection Suite Plus using the avast Enterprise Administration console (AEA)
This article is the 3rd in a series that were written by Che Johnson (Avast Software Technical Support) and J.R. Guthrie (avast Sales and Support Specialist from Advantage Micro Corporation). We spent over a year writing this series of “Managing avast Endpoint Protection” documents to make installations easier. These URLs are for avast! Endpoint Protection Suite Plus using the avast Enterprise Administrator console. avast! Enterprise Administration console (AEA) The AEA console is required when managing 200+ systems. This Enterprise console is the most powerful anti-virus management tool in the industry. For those of you that have previously used ADNM (previous version 4 of the Enterprise console with blue...
Managing avast Endpoint Protection Suite Plus using the Small Office Administration console (SOA)
This article is the 2nd in a series that were written by Che Johnson (Avast Software Technical Support) and J.R. Guthrie (avast Sales and Support Specialist from Advantage Micro Corporation). We spent over a year writing this series of “Managing avast Endpoint Protection” documents to make installations easier. These URLs are for avast! Endpoint Protection Suite Plus using the Small Office Administrator console: avast! Small Office Administration console (SOA) NOTE: The SOA console does NOT have to be installed on the server, and does not use conventional SQL (it uses an embedded SQL lite). Ours is running on a XP SP3 box (very light). You may...
Managing avast Endpoint Protection Suite using the Small Office Administration console (SOA)
Che Johnson (Avast Software Technical Support) and J.R. Guthrie (avast Sales and Support Specialist from Advantage Micro Corporation) spent over a year writing this series of “Managing avast Endpoint Protection” documents to make installations easier. These URLs are for avast! Endpoint Protection Suite using the Small Office Administrator console: avast! Small Office Administration console (SOA) NOTE: The SOA console does NOT have to be installed on the server, and does not use conventional SQL (it uses an embedded SQL lite). Ours is running on a XP SP3 box (very light). You may push a deployment from the console for a domain. Workgroups will not deploy,...
How to do a clean install of avast Pro using the avast removal tool!
This REMOVAL process is specific to avast! 7 (or 8) upgrading over an avast! 4, 5, 6 or an avast! 7 installation (also use when upgrading avast! Free to avast! Pro or avast! Endpoint Protection) You will want to have your avast license file available for insertion during step nine (license.avastlic) 1) Remove all avast! versions as well as any other A/V programs from add/remove programs in control panel. 2) Download the latest version of avast! Uninstall Utility (aswclear.exe) and save it on your desktop. http://files.avast.com/files/eng/aswclear.exe 3) Start Windows in Safe Mode (F8 key before Windows splash screen on...
How to properly use the avast! AntiSpam Filter for Outlook
avast! AntiSpam Filter for Outlook When you open Outlook, you will see the avast! AntiSpam toolbar. You will be able to train the avast! AntiSpam toolbar for your exact needs, to save time and effort. There are basically only 3 different types of email, and each has a unique way to be correctly dealt with. 1) SPAM (unsolicited email, you did not sign up, you never heard of them) 2) SOLICITED (you signed up for it, and you are now on a mailing list, whether you like it or not) 3) CORPORATE (the email you use to communicate with employees...
Windows 8; The Good The Bad and The Ugly
Once again Microsoft has taken their flagship OS in a new direction in an attempt to chase down the pop culture of technology. As the world continues its perilous journey towards touch screen interfaces it is expected that the hardware and the software will experience some growing pains. From a technical standpoint it would appear that the engineers at Microsoft have done their homework and created a definite solid footing on which to build this new age platform. Unfortunately, the non-technical sales reps and managerial staff have decided that they know whats best for business and have thrown a...
Microsoft Windows 8 Compatibility Check tool is missing incompliant CPUs
According to MS support requirements for Windows 8, a processor must include the PAE, SSE2, and the NX bit instructions sets. While PAE has been included in Intel CPUs since 2001 and SSE2 has been in them since 1995 the major instruction set to verify is the NX bit (aka No Execute or Execute Disable bit instruction set). NX has been supported in x86 and x64 processors since Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 SP1 (Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) was released on August 25, 2004). Intel CPUs manufactured prior to Feb 2004 do NOT include NX...
Do I need antivirus on my iPad?
There are two sides to the iPad anti-virus issue, so let me explain both sides, with cases. Apple iPad devices are fairly well protected. There is not too much to worry about as long as your iPad is not “jail broken” and crashing. The Operating System, called the iOS, is a “closed system.” Unauthorized applications or viruses only have a limited amount of interaction with the iOS. While this reduces the need for an iPad anti-virus/anti-spyware software, it doesn’t totally eliminate it. All operating systems contain vulnerabilities. It is quite possible (almost a guarantee) for a security exploit to...
antivirus testing vs real world occurrences: How can you test what you can’t see?
AV Comparatives March 2012 used 300,000 known samples. Here testing relied mostly on definitions detection (DAT). When using known samples, “Brute Force” definition detection is very effective and nets you excellent ratings, with the average at 96% for the top 15 AV vendors. However, this type of testing does NOT mimic real world occurrences. Polymorphic code is the real problem. All Polymorphic code is unknown, rare, and cannot be analyzed by DAT detection until execution. http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_fd_mar2012_intl_en.pdf AV Comparatives of August 2011 testing is based on static detection of new/unknown malicious software. The average here was just under 60% for...
avast! AutoSandbox 7.3 and the Polymorphic Infection
Cloud Services is now a must In avast! 7.3, gone is the prompt asking to run in the sandbox. The addition of the Cloud Services adds a highly mature white listing / black listing database with tens of millions of files. This database is too large to be housed on the PC, and requires the Reputation Services to be enabled. The AutoSandbox learns from every user, everyday! With 180 million users, this database is the most extensive of its type in the world. Removing known code from white/black listing, unknown code is then analyzed for other variables, including file...
avast 7 downgrade to avast 6 issues and solutions
avast 7 has released as of February 23rd. It is new and there are many issues being posted daily on the avast forum in many threads. There are also many avast! 7 users that have no issues. However, the business community is NOT ready to deal with these issues, we just want our computers to work. So, staying with avast! 6 for a little while makes since, and let the product get some more debugging. This way you not introduce any undesired results from this upgrade. avast! 6 took about 2 months to be ready for commercial users. Also,...
How to clean an Infected Computer using “SCRAPE”
1)If you have been using avast!, this is most likely NOT a virus infection, but a spyware infection! The best antivirus programs in the world stop approximately 95% of virus’, and 70% of spyware. We have been relying on Microsoft Windows Defender for years now, but that program has become worthless, and all it does is slow your machine down. We actually remove Defender from all of our systems. We have found that some users will be re-infected until properly protected. The best protection that money can buy is avast! Pro and Malwarebytes Pro combined. Over 95% of systems,...
