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The latest edition of the popular Avast anti virus software is here. The Avast Home Edition is a complete ICSA & Checkmark certified anti virus program. It is also certified by Checkmark for its anti spyware and anti rootkit bundled package. Avast boasts of its featured components like an On Demand scanner with a simple, easy access user interface. The skin can be changed according to your meticulous preference. What you do is just pick out the drive or media device to scan and then simply press the Play button, Voila! On Access scanner is one other feature. These are special providers that protect mostly available email clients, instant messaging and the Network traffic which detects easily, any intrusion. It is a light weight firewall. Peer to Peer protection for file sharing programs like Kazaa. Bit torrents, the most popular file sharing method. It has Web shield which monitors and filters HTTP traffic. It has Boot time scanner which scan disks in the same time as Chkdsk does in Windows. it provides a much more secure and prompt detection of trojans and rootkits.
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Avast Home Edition 4.8.1229.80923 is a free antivirus, and it was released this year September 23, 2008. Even if it was just released less than a month (since the date today is Oct 8), 30,937,233 people have already downloaded this program at Download.com. Even the Editor of Download.com has given Avast Home Edition a perfect score 5/5. It just proves that Avast Home Edition is a program worthy for our attention. This program has the following workings, according to the publisher’s description: On demand scanner with skinnable simple interface, choose what you want to scan and just press the play button; On access scanner, special providers to protect the most of available e-mail clients; Instant messaging–ICQ, Miranda; Network traffic–intrusion detection, lightweight firewall; P2P protection for Kazaa, BitTorrent; Web shield–monitors and filters all HTTP traffic; NNTP scanner–scans all Usenet Newsgroup traffic and all operations with files on PC; Boot time scanner–scans disks in the same way and in the same time as Windows CHKDSK does.
Both spyware and a computer virus are forms of unwanted or malware (malicious software) that can be harmful and give nuisance to your computer. The difference is that spyware collects information without any notice or consent. Spyware will not actually harm or corrupt the data on your computer but as stated earlier, it can give nuisance because it takes control or your computer. Anti-virus programs or software cannot remove spyware, so there is still further study of some anti-virus developer to create an antivirus that also features anti-spyware. There is a lot of ways on how Spyware can be installed on your computer. One is via virus and another is by being secretly attached to the software that you want to install or download. Furthermore, spyware is a specific type of malware that collects information about you and your computer, without you knowing it. Meanwhile, virus is just a specific way of having spyware get into your computer and be secretly distributed via e-mail or instant messaging.
A firewall is like a guard that allows or prohibits intruders to the network. It has a control policy that indicates and dictates what should be denied and permitted to access the network in order to protect the network from any harm. It is a preventive measure and not completely the solution to viruses or any harmful things that can be acquired in the internet. It is designed to protect and not to heal infected data. Firewall is not able to do that. Unlike anti-virus software, it updates and scans the memory or programs when you reboot your computer. During the reboot, it can detect whether there are viruses, the location of the viruses and eventually cure it. Anti-virus software is designed for the purpose of healing and detecting harmful virus on your computer. In other words, even if the viruses had infected some parts of the data saved in your computer, it is still capable of adjusting allowing its features to cure the infected area. Compared to a firewall, it is designed only to protect and guard the network due to its control policy.
Viruses are no longer confined to your desktop PC and laptop. Recently they have spread to mobile devices as well, since mobile handsets now have a variety of interfaces and data connection capabilities.
Antivirus vendors are beginning to offer solutions for mobile handsets. However it is wise to review anything first before installing it on your handheld, as the scanning process might impact other legitimate applications on the handheld. A good solution is USB and Flash memory-based solutions as they will give you the flexibility of swapping and using these products with a range of hardware devices, not just one unit.
There are many free download edition of anti-virus in the internet to install in your computer having now your own anti-virus software that will update your computer every time you will turn it on. By just using any search engine, and typing in some keywords and with a few seconds, list of different anti-virus editions will appear on your monitor. You can now have the chance to choose or select the edition that will go well with your processor. It will be dependent on you on what brand of anti-virus you want, for as long as it is compatible with your computer, you can choose any free edition or version of your preferred anti-virus. Anti-virus gives you updates about the status of your computer in terms of the discovered viruses. Free of charge so it is practical to have one.
