Avast 5.0!

Avast! is one of the free alternatives for antiviruses (among other popular ones such as AVG and Avira). Today, they announced that Avast 5.0 is out in three products: Avast Antivirus 5 (for free as usual), Avast Pro Antivirus 5, and Avast Internet Security 5. Avast 5.0 apparently has an interface overhaul (4.8 interface sux, yes) and provides more security protection. Unlike the Avira antivirus, Avast is free from annoying advertising pop-ups (although you can “hack” Avira to make the pop-up go away)

To find out what’s the difference between the three products (apart from the pricing), click the image below for a larger version:

Avast 5.0 features

• Antivirus and anti-spyware engine
• avast! Intelligent Scanner
• Silent/Gaming Mode
• Behavior Shield
• Real time anti-rootkit protection
• Smart virus updates
• avast! Community IQ
• Behavioral Honeypots
• Green computing
• avast! iTrack
• File System / Mail Shield
• Web Shield
• IM / P2P Shield
• Network Shield

Avast Internet Security 5.0

This seems to be a new product released by Avast. Similar to the Norton 360 or the Kaspersky Internet Security that I reviewed, Avast Internet Security is a bundle of extra securities to protect you both offline and offline. From their official news:

This (Avast Internet Security) is our brand-new product and is focused on users that do on-line banking or shopping or that have sensitive data on their computer. We believe that these users need some extra layers of protection and developed this product to provide three more layers. This product takes the free antivirus and adds a 2-way silent firewall, a sandbox, and anti-spam. The firewall ensures that only trusted applications are able to receive or send data across the internet. The sandbox provides a means of executing your browser (or any other application) in a protected environment—thus even if you get infected, the infection does not leave the sandbox and does not harm your computer. And the anti-spam helps you get rid of all that irritating email you receive every day. And, we have made this product attractive to consumer users—a single license can be used on 3 computers in your household.

I haven’t tried and installed it yet but definitely welcome your opinions if you have Avast 5.0 installed already on your system.