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Reviews For Avast Home Anti Virus version 4.8
Average Rating: 3.33 Based On 3 Reviews
Date: May 29, 2008, 12:10:44pm
user: jobhunter
computer: Pentium 4 3Ghz HT
operating system: XP Pro SP2
screen reader: Jaws 6.2
rating: 4
comments: After hearing about all the problems that Jaws users have encountered when upgrading to AVG version 8.0, I decided to try and avoid those problems and installed Avast Home version 4.8 on my XP computer running Jaws 6.2. This version of Avast is free for non-commercial use. My experience so far with the program has been very positive.
Installation was straight forward and learning to use the program has been very easy.
A tip gleaned from one of the blind tech mailing lists instructed users to open the program settings from the Avast icon on the system tray. From there, tab into the common settings and be sure that the “use skins” item is not checked. I would also recommend to tab into the “update basic” section and set the program update option to automatic. Other than that, I left all other options at the default settings.
The things I like about Avast:
1. The whole computer scan ran in 20 minutes instead of 1 hour for AVG.
2. Besides viruses, it is always scanning for rootkits and spyware which AVG only did with the full paid product.
3. It monitors all web pages for malicious activity, which AVG did not do.
4. It monitors all network traffic for network attacks and works in conjunction with your firewall software.
5. If you use IM clients or Peer-to-peer networks, it will protect you on both of these fronts. If you don't use this, you can disable those services to save resources.
6. I noticed that after installing Avast, my computer boot up time is about 1 minute faster.
7. I have noticed that overall computer performance is better, which is a nice unexpected benefit.
And a few negatives:
1. Avast does not allow you to schedule a daily or weekly computer scan with the free Home version. This really isn’t a problem for me, since I had disabled this in AVG and ran the scan when I wanted it run. You will need to manually run the scan with Avast, which is very simple to do from the desktop icon.
2. You are required to register the Avast Home product or it will stop working 60 days after installation. This is a very simple process but does require sighted assistance if done through their web site. You can alternatively send an email to the support team stating that you are a blind user who needs to register and they will send you your registration code, which you will need to paste into the registration screen. The registration is good for 14 months, at which time you will need to re-register. Not a big sacrifice for free access to such a great program.
3. I did notice that downloading a large number of email messages in a single batch was about 20% slower than with AVG. If you only use web mail and not an email client such as Outlook or Thunderbird, then this will not affect you.
I have now installed Avast Home on all three of our home computers. I ran full scans of the computers after the installation and Avast found malware on one of the laptops that had gone undetected by AVG, Adaware and Spybot. That experience gave me the opportunity to see how easy it was to remove this problem from the computer.
I had been a happy user of AVG for the past seven years and it served me well. Their decision to design a new program interface that does not play well with screen readers is disappointing but not surprising. This has given me the opportunity to discover Avast Home, which I believe is a superior product to the AVG Free offering. I just hope that Avast continues to maintain a product interface that is screen reader friendly.
Date: July 11, 2008, 12:33:42am
user: chrischas0713
computer: Intel pentium 3 processor 1.10 gz 512 mb
operating system: windows xp home addition
screen reader: Jaws for windows 9.0
rating: 5
comments: I agree with the last person that reviewed this product. Avast is an excellent product and what I like about it is it lets you know when you are checking your e-mail when a virus comes through and it verbalizes using sound files.
I was a bit unsure about downloading Avast at first, but now I am glad that I have the product on my computer.
Date: October 10, 2009, 5:35:26pm
user: groovy41
computer: IBM intell pentium processor 3 256 megs ram
operating system: Windows xpsp2
screen reader: window eyes 5.5
rating: 1
comments: I would not install this software since am using window eyes version 7.11, it kind of slows down your system plus it takes up a lot of room on the hard drive since it is 130 MB in size, and the add remove section in control pannel will not work to remove the program, instead you have to have sighted assistance to uninstall it, cause you have to put windows in to safe mode in order to uninstall it, and another thing you also have to download an uninstall utilitality from avast.com. It is a small file, you have to put it on my desktop, then if you really want to uninstall it, you have to put the windows in safe mode, then you have to tell the sighted person togo to the desktop and click on aswclear.exe, and once that opens it will remove the program. Then after that you also have to tell them to go to the start menu, and click on restart the computer. After you have done all of that your computer will boot up normally. So I would not install this software at all!
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