- Quick specs
- Price: Free to try (60-day trial); $39.95 to buy (Buy it now)
- Operating system: Windows Vista, Windows 95, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98
- Date added: May 13, 2008
- Total Downloads: 1,611,065
- Downloads last week: 95,047
- See full specifications
A newer version of Avast Professional Edition is available.
(Download doesn't provide access to previous versions of this program.)
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 453 votes
See all user reviews
CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: CNET Staff
Avast Professional Edition skillfully scans your PC and several programs for viruses, although configuring it is not for the faint of heart.
Immediately after installation, the program asks if you want to schedule an antivirus scan of your local hard drives at system start. You'll notice two icons in your system tray after installing Avast: one to configure the functions and another to activate the virus recovery database.
Well-designed, Avast scans executables, inbound and outbound e-mails, and P2P programs such as Kazaa, Limewire, and Morpheus. Instant messages received from several messenger programs are inspected for harmful viruses as well. The program was able to block URLs and common file operations such as renaming and deleting. We appreciated the sensitivity adjusters to get protection to desired levels including normal, high, or customized.
We must say this application did slow down our system while surfing and using other programs. Many of its configurations require intermediate know-how or better. Fortunately, it has a generous 60-day trial. Don't let the steep learning curve turn you off; Avast safeguards your system at optimum levels.
Publisher's description
From Alwil Software :Avast 4 Professional Edition is a complete ICSA & Checkmark certified antivirus, Checkmark certified anti-spyware & anti-rootkit software package for corporate and advanced home use. avast Professional Edition includes an on demand scanner with two user interfaces, a skinnable simple interface: just select what you want to scan and in which way and press the play button, an enhanced user interface: Outlook like UI allows users to set any feature of Avast, prepare and run tasks, store and check task results, on access scanner: special providers to protect: most available e-mail clients, instant messaging: ICQ or Miranda, network traffic: lightweight firewall, P2P protection for Kazaa, BitTorrent, Web shield: all HTTP traffic, script blocker. avast Professional Edition is available in 32 languages. Small, true incremental, updates are downloaded and installed automatically.
Version 4.8.1201 improves compatibility with Windows XP SP3.
What's new in this version:
Version 4.8.1195 improves user experience in multiplayer games as well as providing many fixes and optimizations in the scanning engine.
User reviews of Avast Professional Edition 4.8.1201.80516
- Average user rating: 4.3 stars out of 453 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 10 user reviewsSee all 10 user reviews
This software version | All versions -
Version: Avast Professional Edition 4.8.1201.80516
"Not only the detection rate counts!"
Pros: According to AV- Comparatives Avast earned a advanced plus on demand detection of virus and malware in February 2008. That is a fine reward.
But I do not think that this is the main rational argument for considering Avast. Some other antivirus software scores in this regard even somewhat better.
The main arguments for using Avast, apart of being free, are all its special features. What comparatives and Virus Bulletin does not consider are just those features and they are not either supposed to consider them. They consider mainly only two things and those are the detection rates and that the software does not make so called false positives. Those considerations are extremely important but, please, do not consider them as the whole truth but only a very important part of the whole truth.
Also consider those very important features Avast has such as resident protection, P2P shields, web shield, script blocker, boot time scan, virus chest (which protects in a vault, against malicious attacks, certain files which are very important for the operating system), network shield (a lightweight firewall) and other features.
In other words, no good having a good detection rate if the software does not also have a good capability of detecting malware and not just in the laboratory, but also in the real practical world.
Alwil is the company which makes Avast and Alwil is indeed a very serious company. It does not nag you even if you only use the free version, that is Avast Home Edition, with all sorts of ads asking you to upgrade. This makes a difference and actually tells you something. It tells you that they are serious. They make a software which is considered to protect you in the real world. They have seriously considered all those features when they made Avast.
Apart of all this it also protects you from spyware and rootkits. It has a lot of skins to choose from which makes it in fact really special and attractive. Those properties are also very important.
I loved my Avast so much that I upgraded very recently, for a three years lease, to Avast Professional Edition.
I have been using Avast constantly in three different laptops for three years (HP, Acer and now Sony Vaio) and I have had no problems whatsoever. I have tried other antivirus software and made some online scanning and my PC seems, according to those scans, that it is free from malware. Avast has, in other words, protected me very well with no false positives and has also been very stable.
Cons: None!
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: Avast Professional Edition 4.8.1201.80516
Pros: I've been using the free edition for quite a while and tried the pro edition, it works...works great...script blocking & other features, i really like it....i tried lots of other programs, i tried avira, but has too many false positives, avg (i really don't like), Kaspersky (one of the best, but hogs computer resources), ESET (did not detect things on my computer, only able to find them through an online scan), and avast! suites me well...No matter how many times i switch antivirus program, i still keep coming back to avast!, they simply provide the best protection, and the updates are also great
Cons: None
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Version: Avast Professional Edition 4.8.1201.80516
Pros: I love this software. The best thing about it is that it's free for 60 days! I love the idea of having an anti virus and an anti spyware in 1! It's the best free software I have come across! Thank you for making this great software! It's truly great.
Cons: No Cons
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Version: Avast Professional Edition 4.8.1201.80516
Pros: It didn't dissapoint me..(only 512 GB RAM on my pc) works swell. Much for your money if you compare to other antivirus "purchaseware"..
Cons: It doesn't thrill me either.. the search for the wholy gral continues..
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Version: Avast Professional Edition 4.8.1201.80516
Pros: I to was using the free version of this program,but due to all of the threats out there today I opted to upgrade to the paid version.
I have it on my son's laptop due to the fact it is wireless and I wanted a strong anti-virus/ anti-spyware suite. So far it has kept his laptop clean.
I like the auto updates. i don't have to do it manually.
Cons: I would like to see the scan speed improved. it seems a bit slow.
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