XnView Software

Avast Home Edition - http://www.avast.com (Anti Virus Software)

Avast Home Edition 4.6.763 - Freeware with Registration Code:
January 28, 2006

* enhanced support for UU-coded files
* avast! Screensaver should now work even under Windows x64 (with 64-bit screensavers)
* an attempt to solve problems related to computer freezing during shutdown (especially on Windows x64 machines with nForce4 chipset)
* scheduled scan progress can now be tracked and controlled by a new tray icon (Professional Edition)
* P2P Shield: added support for BitPump
* improved interaction of Standard Shield with other provider (better definition of scan exceptions)
* improved scanning speed of ZIP archives
* added an "unpacker" for OLE archives (extracts and scans e.g. binary files embedded in MS Office documents)
* Outlook plugin now works correctly even in the beta version of new MS Office 12
* Web Shield: minor improvements related to the handling of log files
* added Chinese language versions (both Simplified and Traditional)

Homepage:
http://www.avast.com/

Avast Home Edition 4.7.817 - Freeware with Registration Code:
April 19, 2006

* Standard Shield: by default, system DLLs are not scanned anymore (speed optimization)
* further improved Standard Shield speed under Windows XP (generally, less files are scanned)
* Standard Shield: improved compatibility with Microsoft Office (particularly, saving of Excel documents on network shares)
* mail scanner now doesn't show Timeout Expired messages; the program was modified so that the respective timeout can be controlled by the mail client itself
* mail scanner: solved problem with the mail client reporting expired timeouts when sending larger emails via slow connectections
* mail scanner: fixed problem with delays during IP address reverse-lookup
* mail scanner: fixed displaying of tray icon
* P2P Shield: added support for Winny2 and Google Talk
* Web Shield: improved compatibility with Win9x
* transition to new data storage - avast does not need the ODBC/Jet drivers anymore and should therefore work better even under older versions of Windows (95/98/ME, NT4)
* fixed a bug in the Script Blocker module that was causing conflicts with some programs under non-English Windows (e.g. the German invoice system Lexware)
* added support for additional executable packers (e.g. MoleBox)
* fixed a bug that was sometimes causing very slow scanning of CAB archives
* boot-time scanner: added support for additional archives (GZ, BZIP2, TAR, LHARC, ZOO)
* improved handling of infected files with exotic filenames
* solved a problem with setting of incorrect access rights to the avast executable files
* removed a limit of maximal length of winpopup alerts (used to be 128 characters)
* Enhanced User Interface: infected items are now marked as red
* implemented new method of deleting of locked infected files (now using the boot-time scanner technology)
* this new version is now compatible with the Windows Disk Protection feature from Microsoft Shared Computing Toolkit. For more information, please refer to the FAQ section
* Avast should now work flawlessly with Windows Vista beta 2 and higher (Vista beta 2 will be released in the first half of May, i.e. in about 3 weeks); unfortunately, in beta1 + CTP builds <= 5342 there still can be serious OS stability issues

Homepage:
http://www.avast.com/

Avast Home Edition 4.7.826 - Freeware with Registration Code:
April 28, 2006

* solved problem with installation on Windows NT 4.0 systems
* fixed the Program Settings menu item in the avast tray icon menu
* fixed a bug in the data storage that was preventing it from working correctly if the avast folder pathname contained non-Latin characters
* solved a rare problem that could eventually cause even a crash of the OS during boot (Windows XP)
* further enhanced compatibility with the latest Windows Vista builds

Homepage: http://www.avast.com/

Avast Home Edition 4.7.827

No change log.

Hey ckit,

once again a program I use as well!
I used AntiVir® PersonalEdition Classic so far. But as long as they don't have offline-updates anymore (I use cumputers which are not connected to the net regularly) I looked for something else. Now I'm trying Avast. Is it good - I presume you use it for a longer time now?

cu Burnett

burnett2000 wrote:Hey ckit,

once again a program I use as well!
I used AntiVir® PersonalEdition Classic so far. But as long as they don't have offline-updates anymore (I use cumputers which are not connected to the net regularly) I looked for something else. Now I'm trying Avast. Is it good - I presume you use it for a longer time now?

cu Burnett

I switched to using Avast after AVG failed to detect a virus in a file I had downloaded. Try it and see if you like it, sadly there aren't many free virus scanners available.

Here's something what you guys may or may not have heard. Free/Opensource on-demand virus scanner ClamWin antivirus. Because it's only on-demand scanner I don't recommend ClamWin to be used as only AV of the system, but as secondary scanner it works more than well.

If you are interested about ClamWin I recommend that you make ClamWin portable or if you are lazy just download ready to run portable ClamWin distribution. Portable ClamWin get's rid of the systray icon and doesn't require install so it's possible to use Portable ClamWin from USB memory stick or CD.

Hello ckv, you can make Clamwin scan programs in real time by using Winpooch.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... _id=122629
It is another open source program which also helps monitor changes to your system. This is useful in detecting bad software or just finding out what new dlls a program wants to shove into your OS directory.

marsh wrote:Hello ckv, you can make Clamwin scan programs in real time by using Winpooch.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... _id=122629
It is another open source program which also helps monitor changes to your system. This is useful in detecting bad software or just finding out what new dlls a program wants to shove into your OS directory.

Cool, though using the current Clamwin as real time on-access scanner sounds horrible. ClamWin's performance is not the best, you know.

Edit: I checked out the Winpooch and otherwise it seems like really good piece of software. Thanks for pointing it out.

Avast Home Edition 4.7.869 has been Released.

August 6, 2006

* Standard Shield now compatible with NT systems set up for the C@ security standard
* minor fixes in the data storage
* auto-updater now run with normal priority (used to be high priority)
* minor enhancements in a number of unpackers (e.g. added support for old versions of UPX)
* fixed a bug in LHARC unpacker
* fixed a bug related to deletion of files from certain special archives; the "move to chest" operation used to, under certain circumstances, cause the file to be actually extracted to the avast folder
* attempt to solve the problem with corruption of ThunderBird mailbox when a virus is found in its first email
* files not scanned because of scan exclusions are not displayed in the Simple UI results dialog anymore
* hyperlinks (e.g. "virus information") are now opened in browser's new window
* Windows 9x: fixed a bug in data storage causing incorrect behavior if the program was installed to a folder with non-Latin character path name
* minor optimization of memory consumption of the "avast! Antivirus" service (process ashServ.exe/aswServ.exe)
* updater now more tolerant to corrupted data files

Avast Home Edition 4.7.871 has been Released.

August 8, 2006

* fixed malfunctioning of the boot-time scanner under Windows NT/2000 (error "STOP c0000139")

Avast Home Edition 4.7.892 has been Released!

September 25, 2006

* avast is now finally compatible with Windows Vista RC1; also, the "remediations" in Vista Security Center are now functional
* added CHM unpacker (and this time, as an extra benefit, it should work even in the boot-time scanner)
* fixed a bug in the UPX unpacker
* added a couple of new Win32 unpackers
* added a workaround to problems with compatibility with Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall (remaints of menus on the screen + seldom hang of avast program on start)
* no more attempts to delete files on read-only media
* improved detection of ZoneAlarm Pro (to prevent unnecessary WebShield incompatibility warnings)
* avast! screen-saver now uses better algorithm to remember last scan position
* added Swedish and Slovenian language versions

Avast Home Edition 4.7.936 has been Released!

January 12, 2007

* higher performance of the scanning engine (especially on new CPUs) and faster start of the avast! system service on OS boot
* improved support for Windows Vista (added support for NTFS transactions (also known as TxF) etc.)
* improved detection of full-screen applications
* fixed a bug related to the demo licence not being installed during silent installs
* improved compatibility with Windows offline folders
* more improvements in executable unpackers
* minor fixes in the ZIP unpacker
* fixed Runtime error R6034 messages when Mozilla Thunderbird version 3.0 is installed
* suppressed double scans when the user selected a local disk scan plus a folder scan (with the folder residing on the local disk)
* added Catalan language module

I can recommend Avast too, I use it almost 2 years, no problem until now.