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...
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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...
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...
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,...
When all else fails, discovery and removal of antivirus leftovers!
edited 05-23-12 by J.R. Guthrie Antivirus software is the most invasive application we will ever install on our systems. Even when the products are properly removed by “Add/Remove Programs”, pieces of code are ALWAYS left behind, and these leftovers can and do conflict with the current antivirus products installed in your system. This situation has occurred throughout my entire career, and is effected by most antivirus vendors (Symantec, Norton, and McAfee just to tag a few.) These symptoms range from no Internet access, system errors, revolving “boot looping”, and the dreaded Microsoft BSOD (blue screen of death) Windows...
15 causes of Hard Disk Corruption
Everybody hates to lose data. Many of the issues proven to cause hard disk corruption can be avoided, if you know what they are. I have writen articles on almost every aspect of this list. Most are avoidable, some are not and we are just taking chances, such as Solar flare activity. We are in a hightened Solar storm now for the next 1.8 years. About the only thing we can do is to reboot our computers daily. So here they are, in no particular order: 1)Bugs in O.S. (Vista is the worst, but can be fixed) 2)Solar Flares...
Business Protect clients are ignoring URL site blockings when deployed by the SBC.
We found avast! Business Protection clients are ignoring URL site blockings when deployed by the SBC. Here’s how I solved this issue! Thanks to this post by Yanto.Chiang: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=82234.msg671729#msg671729 “Dear All, Ok, finally we successfully found how to set URL blocking with SBC. 1. SBC >> Network >> Group View >> Choose the group that administrator would like to set a different policies (click Edit Group Settings) 2. Go to Expert Settings and clicked >> Then you can choose avastcfg://WebShield//WebScanner/BlockedURLs (define the site that administrator would like to blocked and use semicolon as separator 3. To enabled Site Blocking...
QuickBooks multiuser network connection & speed issues
These issues are the most common QuickBooks network connection and speed issues when working with a QuickBooks Multiuser network configuration 1) In multiuser mode, the QuickBooks Database Server Manager must be installed on the server, and activated to scan the data directory of the server. I recommend that this directory be named “QBData” 2) The server should have a fixed IP address, and all workstations should have a network drive mapping to using the server IP address, with directory QBData to drive Q: 3) The QuickBooks Connection Diagnostic Tool should be run on all workstations, to have the required...
avast Pro 6 conversion from avast! Pro 4 (and stopping avast 7 auto installation)
During an avast program update, many time a new version will go over the top of a previous version. And other times this type of upgrade will cause “undesirable results” This process is designed to overcome those issues. The newest version of avast 7 is still quite new and somewhat buggy, so we prefer to stay at avast version 6 for the moment. 1) Download avast! 6 Pro here and save to desktop (must be the 1367 version, or you will get avast! 7 anyways) 2) Save the new avast! license file on the desktop: “license.avastlic” 3) You...
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