Avast AntiVirus Reviews

Hi all ,

Just another post by me today .. I think i am writing too much .. :D

I have been a registered user of avast antivirus for past 4 years or so. I have been extremely satisfied with the results and recommend every other guy i meet. My reviews might look like biased too few :(

Pros:-

• Free :- Avast home edition is free. Only a free registration is required. Which now can be done form the avast interface itself (in Avast 5). Although there is no proxy support in the registration process.Other AV solutions cost a fortune :( at least in a country like India were piracy is rampant, Avast provides a way to keep it to a minimum level  :)
• Light Weight :- Its one of the lightest application on my computer. Believe me its much lighter than Norton, which i received twice as a bloatware with my new laptops. Norton just kills my machines. It sucks !! Both time i uninstalled it on day 0. :D  Avast does not cause a slow down to system performance, and in the mean time keep scanning the file system in the background. You never have to manually scan the HDD.
• Fast :- The new interface is multi threaded, and is suitable on today's multiprocessor systems. I have tried it on Pentium 4, Core 2 Duo, Core i5 460, Core i5 760, And the performance increase with multi processor is clearly visible.
• Detection Rate:- I must say, being Computer Science student (also from past) i experiment with computers a lot (May be that's why i lost my 1st laptop :(), I have never ever been infected with a virus :) . This is a tough claim, but i fortunately its true. Now i have shifted My testing to virtual machines, so i no more have to care for virus infections etc.

Cons :-

• No proxy support for automatic updates :- Although the automatic updates work well on the direct connection, it  has given me some issues behind proxy. I can update Avast manually (both 4 and 5) but some how its never auto updated when behind proxy.( With authentication at least). Proxy support is missing in most of the software's, i don't know why they think that it will only work on a direct connection network.

I cant think of any other Con write now, please leave your comments. I feel that Avast is most reliable and best antivirus. Although this may differ on what experts have to say with detection rate etc... I don't have infrastructure to do that kind of testing. For free users,who cant afford a antivirus and don't want to take the path of piracy, i will recommend avast. Its better than most of the paid solution.  (Atleast Norton and AVG)