150 S Camino Seco, Suite 118 Tucson, AZ

(+1) 520-290-0595

Open : Mon-Fri 09:00am – 4:00pm



Why we switched to avast antivirus after 20 years with Symantec!

Written By :

Category :

Antivirus, Avast, Software, Virus

Posted On :

Share This :

Avast Antivirus Software VS Symantec

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 anti-virus programs were no longer able to deal with the current wave of virus and Trojan infections. During our research we identified a new breed of virus attacking our client’s machines. These new viruses were (and still are, in many cases) able to subvert almost every antivirus and software firewall ever produced. These infections were known as “root kits.” A root kit is an infection that does not have a file name. Root kits do not exist on their own. Root kits are chunks of malicious code that attach to critical Windows Operating System files (kernel files). In many cases these stealthy root kit infections are invisible to the vast majority of system monitoring and detection tools, and to most anti-virus programs as well. Back in 2002, I had been testing a “new kid on the block,” avast! antivirus, for about six months. Our engineers quickly came to the conclusion that avast! cleans infected machines better than anything we had used in the past. We found that avast! was THE ONLY ANTIVIRUS PROGRAM resistant to these new root kit infections. We also found that avast! was able to clean the infected machines that other AV programs could not even see.  One of the reasons avast! was so great at this was it’s VRDB (Virus Recovery Database) which fingerprinted the kernel files so it knows what a clean machine looks like. This gives avast! the ability to flag changes in kernel files (detect new infections from unknown viruses) and then was able to restore the infected file to the pre-infection state (the recovery process). Using this process avast! was able to remove infections that it had idea what they were. We immediately started converting all our clients to avast! and found 95% of them had existing Trojans in their computers and networks and didn’t even know it! avast! helped us clean all of these computers and networks. Needless to say, we quickly became big fans of avast! antivirus.  Avast has continued to prove itself very effective and we are firmly behind this tremendous anti-virus product. As a matter of fact, avast! now tops all other AV programs, according to the OPSWAT World Antivirus Market Share Report. Avast Software has a 19.4% global market share, the largest share of any AV company according to this San Francisco based software management company. http://www.oesisok.com/news-resources/reports/worldwide-antivirus-market-share-report%202010

So, why was avast! better than any other anti-virus program we can find?:

1)       avast!, when loaded on a clean system, finger prints the Windows kernel files. Now avast! has a record of what your clean machine looks like. avast! can then detect known and unknown rootkits by looking at what has changed. The Virus Recovery Database (VRDB) can then recover the infected files back to the pre-infected state , thus removing a virus even if it doesn’t even know what it is. 2)       avast! also has the ability to scan from a pre-boot environment. avast! scans and removes viruses before they load.  This is just one of the reasons avast! cleans better than other antivirus programs. 3)       We were aware of only three AV programs that offer the “fingerprint” module: avast!, Avira, and Panda. Panda does not load the fingerprint module by default, so it’s a custom configuration to get it to work. Many of our clients reported that this feature was difficult to install and configure. Avira loads all the shields at once and many of our clients report that this slows down systems too much. Avast! loads quickly and with a small footprint for thorough and complete protection that does not slow your system down! 4)      avast! updates the anti-virus engine every 10 to 14 days. This leaves a very small window of opportunity for hackers to reverse engineer the code (adding hacks into the virus to hobble the anti-virus engine to make it appear to scan “clean). Many of the other AV programs on the market today are regularly hacked leading to unreliable results. We have NEVER seen avast! hacked in this way. 5)     avast! has an aggressive pricing schedule that makes it less expensive than its competitors on the market. “At this point in time, the Internet should be regarded as an Enemy Weapons System!” Avast is always rated in the top products  for speed and footprint. This is a critical step in our computer tuneup procedure for making a system fast! For our customers, we provide Avast managed network protection, with superior avast tech support in the USA, from the USA, with Americans!

SAVE Money when you purchase your license of AVAST and MALWAREBYTES  licenses through Advantage Micro Corporation.  We offer you excellent discounts for multiple licenses, education, military, non-profit, healthcare, religious and government agencies, as well as competitive and renewal discounts.

Get it right the first time, and call J.R. at 520-290-0595, and see for yourself what superior tech support is all about!

Ready To Learn What Advantage Can Do For You?