avast! 4 Professional Edition is a collection of high-end technologies that work in perfect synergy, having one common goal: to give you the top grade protection against computer viruses. It represents an ideal solution for any Windows-based workstation.
avast! 4 Professional Edition is a complete ICSA certified antivirus software for your company. It obtained VB100% awards in 2002/4 Virus Bulletin comparative reviews.

avast! scans for viruses, worms and Trojans: On Demand - with two User Interfaces, On Access, E-mail, during Boot Time, in File Explorer and Screen Saver. It maintains Virus Chest. Protects E-mail, HTTP, NNTP, ICQ, mIRC, Kazaa etc. True incremental updates based on iAVS technology updates twice a week virus definition file.
avast! Home/Professional now fully supports the 64-bit Windows and Vista platforms.

Features:
- Antivirus kernel
- Simple User Interface
- Enhanced User Interface
- Resident protection
- Script Blocker (Professional Edition only
- P2P and IM Shields
- Network Shield
- Web Shield
- Automatic updates
- PUSH updates
- Virus Chest
- System integration
- Command-line scanner
- Integrated Virus Cleaner
- Support for 64-bit Windows / Vista
- Internationalization

*** Antivirus Kernel
New version of avast! antivirus kernel features outstanding detection abilities, together with high performance. You can expect 100% detection of In-the-Wild viruses (the ones what are really spreading amongst people) and very good detection of Trojan horses, all that with only a minimum number of false alarms.
The kernel was certified by ICSA; it frequently takes part in the tests of Virus Bulletin magazine, often yielding the VB100 award.
*** Simple User Interface
Simple User Interface is used to start on-demand scanning, work with the results, change various options etc. Basic resident protection settings can be modified here. Simple User Interface is the main applicationof avast! 4 Home Edition. You can start additional avast! modules from here, such as the Virus Chest, Updater or Log Viewer.
*** Enhanced User Interface
Unlike the Simple User Interface, the scanning is performed by so called "tasks". First, you define a task, including various parameters - areas to scan, what to scan, how to scan, etc. Having the task, you can (possibly repeatedly) run it. Each task generates a list of results; you can work with them later.
*** Resident protection
Resident protection, i.e. the real-time protection of the computer, is one of the most important parts of an antivirus program today. avast! features a powerful resident module that is able to detect the virus before it has any chance to infect your computer.
E-mail protection consists of two independent modules; first, there is a generic scanner working on the SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 protocol level. It is capable of protecting any existing e-mail client that uses these protocols. Second, there is a special plugin for MS Outlook only; it is completely transparent, requiring no special settings.
New feature of version 4 is heuristic analysis of e-mail scanners. It is extremely useful in protecting against new, unknown viruses and worms that are not possible to detect by the usual means. The heuristic module performs a thorough investigation of every e-mail message and watches for suspicious signs that might announce virus presence. When the number of those signs exceeds the user-defined level, the message is considered dangerous and the user is warned.
*** Script Blocker
The resident protection of the Professional Edition includes an additional module, not contained in the Home Edition - Script Blocker. This module watches all the scripts being executed in the operating system (so called WSH scripts - Windows Scripting Host). It also scans all the scripts run as a part of a web page within your web browser (Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator and Mozilla).
*** Automatic updates
Automatic updates are another key point in virus protection. Both the virus database and the program itself can be updated automatically.
*** PUSH updates
A special feature of the Professional Edition are PUSH updates. It is a dramatic change in the philosophy of updates. Usually, every installed program checks every now and then whether a new version is available. PUSH updates, however, are initialized by our server; they result in your computer quickly responding and performing the necessary update. The system is based on the SMTP protocol, i.e. on usual e-mail messages. The updates itself are controlled by the avast! resident e-mail providers (MS Outlook and Internet Mail).
*** Virus Chest
The main properties of the Virus Chest are complete isolation from the rest of the operating system (no outside process, i.e. no virus either, may access the files inside) and the fact that the files inside the Chest may not be run (i.e. there is no danger in storing viruses there).
*** System integration
avast! antivirus features outstanding integration into your system. The scanning can be started directly from Windows Explorer, by clicking a folder or a file with your right mouse button and selecting the corresponding choice from the menu.
Another interesting feature is a special screen-saver that performs scanning for viruses during its run-time. avast! antivirus works together with your favorite screen-saver, so you don't have to change to anything you wouldn't like.
Another new option is the boot-time scan (Windows NT/2000/XP/.NET only). It is important in the case that a virus is suspected to be active on your computer. The boot-time scan is performed before the virus may get activated, so the virus cannot influence the scanning in any way.
*** Command-line scanner
Experienced users may like another Professional Edition feature - command-line scanner. The scanning can be controlled by many arguments and switches; to use as a pipe filter, a special STDIN/STDOUT mode is available.
The module is intended to be used in BATCH programs. Its output is the same as the output from the Enhanced User Interface tasks (including the report files).

Changes in Version 4.7.1029; July 28, 2007:
* infrastructure changes in the scanning engine bringing higher detection rates
* fixed a bug that was sometimes causing crash of the avast screensaver during its initialization
* improved handling of corrupted files in the SIS and CAB unpackers
* Standard Shield: fixed a minor memory leak in the Vista (and Vista only) driver
* Standard Shield: improved the "move to chest" command in Vista
* Standard Shield: the default scan exceptions are no valid for read/write access only (no execute)
* added more "installer" unpackers
* added more Win32 executable unpackers (Enigma etc.)
* for NTLM proxy authorization (via ISA Server) it is now possible to specify the account under which the avast service will perform the update
* added Arabic language pack

Homepage - http://www.iavs.net/eng/avast_4_professional.html

Size: 15.7 MB

Professional Edition - http://download17.avast.com//iavs4pro/setupengpro.exe

Home Edition - http://download76.avast.com/iavs4pro/setupeng.exe

This post has been edited by ryant3: Dec 5 2007, 09:59 AM

thank 4 update

Good antivirus to use...

wat the best antivirus for xp....

i think kaspersky or aol coz aol is free.aol powered by kaspersky

avast! 4.7.1043 Home/ Professional Edition

Changes in Version 4.7.1043; September 6, 2007:
* fixed a problem in the boot-time scanner (prevents the intermittent "Unhandled Exception" errors)
* added Inno Setup unpacker
* speed optimization of certain operations (e.g. scanning of emails in the Internet Mail provider)
* Standard Shield: fixed a memory leak (Windows NT/200/XP)
* mail scanner: fix in IMAP handler (solves problems with Nortel CallPilot, for example)
* Windows Vista: removed the conflict with Asus Data Security Manager
* Web Shield: now scans even data returned from HTTP POST requests
* speed improvements in the area selection dialog
* fixed various small issues on Windows Vista

avast! Professional Edition
http://download17.avast.com//iavs4pro/setupengpro.exe

avast! Home Edition
http://download76.avast.com/iavs4pro/setupeng.exe

seriously, i dont think there is such a thing as the best antivirus. coz antivirus developer enhance their product frequently, the antivirus that you should choose will be the one that suites your taste the most.

but many uses,
bitdefender, antivir, kaspersky,avast and a few more, search the forum for antivirus, if not mistaken, there is one thread which allow the lowyat user to vote for their antivirus.

i personally prefer avast...

got latest version, thank for update

avast! v4.7.1074 Home & Professional Edition

avast! v4.7.1074 Professional Edition (edit - seems like this download version is not the updated version. Update from the program itself to get v4.7.1074)
http://files.avast.com/iavs4pro/setupengpro.exe

avast! v4.7.1074 Home Edition
http://files.avast.com/iavs4pro/setupeng.exe

This post has been edited by ryant3: Oct 28 2007, 01:29 AM

avast! 4.7.1098 Home/ Professional Edition

Changes in Version 4.7.1098, December 4, 2007:
* fixed a vulnerability in TAR unpacker (special thanks to "Sowhat" of Nevis Labs)
* improvements in various unpackers (winexec, installer, CAB, NTFS Streams)
* boot-time scanner now functional even with USB keyboards
* speed improvements in the Outlook plugin (Windows XP+)
* Web Shield: compatibility improvements
* Internet Mail provider: improvements on Windows Vista
* CAB unpacker now working in boot-time scan
* RAR unpacker modified so that it is now more tolerant to certain corrupted archives (issue reported by Thierry Zoller of n.runs AG)
* Professional Edition: scheduled scan progress icon now accessible even in Windows Vista
* Windows 9x/ME: fix in the Mail Protection Wizard (related to Mozilla Thunderbird accounts)
* fixed a bug in the scan area selection dialog in Windows NT/2000
* optimizations in the updater
* removed mail heuristics false alarm (related to TNEF attachments)

Homepage - http://www.iavs.net/eng/avast_4_professional.html

Size: 17.8 MB

so fast gt new version!thz for the update too

thanks for the update notice....

this software very funny once i copy the crack and the software is pro den suddently change to home ! anyone can tell me why?

Its a good antivirus tho..but i never had the cracks...changed to kaspersky

It depand for user lar...if you ike you avast ok ...antivirus also same that protect virus.

Changes in Version 4.8.1282:
* improvements in some unpackers (Zip, 7-Zip, WinExec, Installer)
* fixed incompatibility with ext2fsd driver
* fixed a problem in The Bat! plugin (causing orphaned thebat.exe processes after the program was closed)
* added new unpacker "droppers" (by default turned on in all tasks including the real time scanner)
* fixed a problem with actions on infected files with special names
* Network Shield: added a component for blocking of malware URLs
* added the possibility of sending of statistical information about detected viruses
* added a new option of reporting of false positives
* improved the submission from the Virus Chest (now based on HTTP protocol)
* added a component for gathering of new samples from exploited pages
* implemented a limit of the maximum size of the selfdef.log file
* speed optimizations in the updater
* speed optimizations in the scanning engine
* solved a minor conflict with McAfee SiteAdvisor
* added support for the Windows Security Center in Vista SP1 (new API)
* minor fixes in the Web Shield
* removed support for ICQ a MSN Messenger alerts

Homepage - http://www.avast.com

Wow...another update from avast..
In vista,my pc running smoothly because less memory usage..

avast! Home Edition 4.8.1290
Version 4.8.1290
November 19, 2008

* improvements in the malware submission system
* minor improvements in some unpackers
* improvements in the rootkit scanner
* Network Shield: solved a problem occurring on systems with missing TCP stack

avast! 4 Home Edition
avast! 4 Professional Edition

are tis 1 still free for the home edition??n how good is the rating for it??

Avast Home Edition 4.8.1296.90115
Download