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| Avast! free beta for Mac |
I remember the NT4 and Win9x days. Virus infections constantly, and they did a lot of damage to an OS that was a glorified shell running on top of DOS. Well, I'm exaggerating a bit, and NT wasn't really DOS-based at all...but let's not get bogged down in details.
I'm rambling here...
Avast! Anti-virus Free is really pretty sweet. I've removed virus and malware infections from some nebulous number of computers, at least in the hundreds, most of which were infected despite having competing free or expensive anti-virus packages installed. I've only removed virii from two computers that had avast! installed thus far, and it was a painless process. I've been a reseller for many anti-virus products, and recommended this free product to customers rather than make a few extra dollars. I'd rather look out for clients and build trust then make a few bucks recommending something I know isn't that great. Just about every computer repair shop I've encountered pushes marginal AV products on customers as an upsell item (especially Best Buy and their affinity for Webroot), and while some do care enough to apply a measure of diligence to their recommendations, why would you spend money on a product that just doesn't stop that many infections?
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| Avast! WebRep is a communal site rating system |
So why, you're probably not asking, do I love Avast! to such an annoying degree?
Because it's light on resources, as a great interface and blocks web threats better than products that cost $60 and bog your machine down.
Better then most anti-virus products on the market, free or not.
You barely feel this program running...in fact, you won't feel it. It uses something like 24 megs of RAM total, inflicts almost zero CPU utilization, and is consistently in the top ten AV products, and is usually in the top five to three. Consistently.
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| Avast! is light on resources |
See how light on resources this AV is? And this is on a single-core Pentium 4. Try that with Norton. In fact, I've seen it run decently on a Pentium III 800. This software tunes itself to the hardware very well.
Another thing I like about it is the hot woman's voice, telling me that my anti-virus definitions have been updated. It's slightly James Bond.
I don't get out much.
Did I mention how slick the interface is? Well, avast! also gives you the most granular control of any anti-virus product I've seen, if you drill down into the settings. Which I do. Thank you, Avast! for giving me esoteric settings to geek with.
Do not dumb it down, please. You've struck a perfect balance in your UI design between a simple, clean, easy to use interface, with power settings just a click away.
I'm taking notes for my first app.
This is probably the most basic of the advanced "Shields" controls:Their talent for UI design would seem like a good match for you esthetically oriented, hip and attractive Mac users ;-)
Another example of great interface design:
Right click and turn of ALL shields, not just a few.
And it doesn't argue with you about it.
Notice, my fellow geeks, the option "Silent/Gaming Mode". It tunes the performance to your CPU load whilst you're gaming, and doesn't bug you with noises and pop-ups.
It would probably be handy when editing music, watching a movie, etc. I've never actually used it...
And another (huge) screenshot, this one is of the sandbox feature...yep. Sandbox in a free anti-virus. This is like a virtual machine for applications, giving you the ability to roll changes back or limit the changes a new app can make to your computer.
I think avast!s approach is kind of novel - they add features and improve proactively, instead of reacting to competition. For example, AVG used to be good, and then they neutered the functionality of their free product so they could up-sell the pay version. This seems to be the common approach.
Avast! seems to be adding great features on a regular basis. This is why I see no reason to recommend anything else, and yes I would spend money on the full product. Every feature they've added unifies neatly into the interface, and carries forward the ability to tweak it if you really want to. I see no reason why I should expect anything less from their Internet Security suite.
Apparently they are rolling out new products for businesses, and seem to be preparing a serious launch into the enterprise market.Symantec, you should probably be worried. I've encountered endless problems with your Endpoint Security Product (which is quite expensive), and never a one with avast!
Competition is a good thing, and it's about time Symantec had some competition. I can't believe they still haven't fixed their firewall tap driver. It's been buggy since they bought out @Guard! When was that, 2000?
Anyways, I don't mean to slam Symantec. They do have top-notch support, and their corporate Endpoint Security product is pretty cool. My intention was to push Mac users to get some protection for their computers.
I know you probably think you are using some superior Operating System, and there are some points in support of that...but believe it or not, Windows is actually inherently more secure than Mac OS X. Seriously.
You've enjoyed the security of obscurity, but that is changing in a hurry. And frankly, Windows is pretty cool. Much more open and affordable, fairly reliable, great recovery functionality, it tunes itself to different hardware to a surprising degree. It has enterprise features nobody else even comes close to. Not even remotely.
Of course their licensing is just obnoxious for businesses. I'm digressing again :-)
So in summary, Avast! is free, light, fast, powerful, slick, remarkably reliable, and downright pleasant to use. For an anti-virus utility. Almost as good as Kapersky's Internet Security suite, and that's pretty much the gold standard of anti-virus products. Note that I'm comparing Avast! Free - not their full-blown Internet Security suite (for which you pay) - with Kapersky's Internet Security suite. And it performs favorably in real-world tests.
Here are some links featuring independent testing that you can use to see how anti-virus and other security applications actually perform* in real-world tests:
- http://www.av-comparatives.org
- http://www.virusbtn.com
- http://www.av-test.org
- http://www.matousec.com
- https://www.icsalabs.com
- http://www.amtso.org
*Please note that the scores on these sites vary monthly, weekly, and even daily! How a product averages over a twelve-month period is more indicative of the level of trust you can place in it's efficacy.
I guess part of the reason for my enthusiasm is that I'm planning my first application, and so I'm just floored by how good of an app it truly is.
This is elegant software. A work of art, even. Why can't software development be an art? It should be.
So to wrap it up, I do have one criticism... Avast!, as appealing and damn near perfect as your Windows interface is...what were you thinking with the Mac Beta? I know it's just a beta, but these are Mac users.
I have to say...the Mac UI kind of gets on my nerves after a while. Too monochromatic. Some color would be a welcome addition, I think.
Your Windows interface is pretty slick...why not use that for the Mac product? You could use UI elements specific to Mac for continuity...such as the disk icons, home icon, etc...and use the good looking color combinations already present in Avast! for Windows. Just my two cents.
Please make the interface of the Windows client available as an option for the Mac product...
Get some antivirus!
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