Antivirus Review: AVAST!

While most antivirus is provided as a shareware, Avast! and AVG actually are quite nice enough to release free version of their product. However, if AVG Free is completely free, and it doesn't requite you to enter any serial number, Avast! Free is rather different. You need to register with a key that can be obtained freely on its official website. While this is completely harmless, you need to do one extra annoying step, and I think it's useless. What are they thinking about?

Avast! interface if quite clean, and doesn't need too much learning to navigate on it effectively. The initial loading screen, if you double click its icon on taskbar, will do memory scan. You can cancel it anytime if you wish. Avast! doesn't take too much RAM and CPU resources, unlike AVG. This is its main advantage compared to other antiviruses. Database update progress is fast, and doesn't spend bandwith like Symantec Corporate Edition, the most pathetic antivirus ever. Even McAfee is far better than Symantec. Avast! offers quite technology for a free version, it has p2p scanning, real time scanning, pop3 scanning, and outlook/exchange scanning. Haha, nice nice.

Its biggest flaw lies on its engine, that OFTEN thinks harmless files as trojans/viruses. The engine needs to be remaked if they want to improve this further. All in all, its a good antivirus, wise choice for older computers. and anyone with slower internet connection will appreciate its speed on updating its database.

Final score: 7/10