Avast Free Business Cloud AntiVirus

[MrKJLS]

Link: https://www.avast.com/avast-for-business

Avast Datasheet: http://files.avast.com/files/marketing/materials/datasheets/en/v2015/avast_for_business_2015_en.pdf

 

Avast for Business is the future of business security: anytime, anywhere cloud-based protection that covers all of your devices(PCs, Macs, even servers), wherever they are, against malware, spam, phishing, hackers, and more. Th e intuitive portal lets you add,adjust, or remove the real-time protection in minutes – no IT expertise required – and you’ll always know the security status of yournetwork with alerts and reports generated automatically whenever you need them. And the best part? It’s free.

Support Operating System's:

 

PC: A minimum of Windows XP (with SP2) needs to be installed. Windows Vista, 7, 8, and even 8.1 are fully supported (unless your device runs the Starter or RT edition) in both the 32- and 64-bit variant. A 10-year old Pentium 3 processor will do, with 128 MB RAM and 1 GB of hard-drive space. Now imagine the stellar performance with your new hardware!

 

Mac: If you’re on a Mac running OSX, it will work. You need 128 MB of RAM and 750MB of disk space. Beyond that, you can be running just about any stable version of OSX (even Yosemite), and we’ll keep you protected.

 

Server:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and 2003 R2 (any edition with the latest Service Pack, 32-bit or 64-bit, incl. Small Business Server)
  
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 (any edition with the latest Service Pack, 32-bit or 64-bit, incl. Small Business Server, except Server Core)
  
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2011 (any edition with the latest Service Pack, x64bit)
  
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and Server 2012 R2 (any edition with the latest Service Pack, x64bit, incl. Small Business Server/Essentials, except Server Core)
  
• Microsoft SharePoint Server 2003/2007/2010/2013
  
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003/2007/2010/2013. Avast antispam is available for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007/2010/2013
  

 

 

• 512 MB or above if running Microsoft Windows Server 2008 or higher (depends on OS requirements and other third-party software installed)
  
• Intel Pentium III compatible processor or above (depends on OS requirements and other third-party software installed)
  
• 1GB free hard disk space
  

Screenshots:

Edited February 1, 2015 by MrKJLS
Added Datasheet

[Arthur]

Since it's free, what's the catch?

 

http://a.pomf.se/hrlobl.png

 

Will Avast keep nagging you to upsell you to the premium edition?

[X-13]

Since it's free, what's the catch?

 

http://a.pomf.se/hrlobl.png

 

Will Avast keep nagging you to upsell you to the premium edition?

 

They do that with the free home edition... so I expect they'll do it for business as well.

[MrKJLS]

Since it's free, what's the catch?

 

http://a.pomf.se/hrlobl.png

 

Will Avast keep nagging you to upsell you to the premium edition?

 

From the brief play in the management console it hasn't nagged me once about the premium version.

 

Update: There is only grayed out options what say it's needs a premium version.

Edited February 1, 2015 by MrKJLS

[MrKJLS]

Since it's free, what's the catch? Will Avast keep nagging you to upsell you to the premium edition?

 

They do that with the free home edition... so I expect they'll do it for business as well.

 

On the endpoint Client, i've found no mention of the premium version or any nags for upgrades.

 

On the management console i've found options what are grayed out with "this feature is only available for Avast Business Premium". There is also an "try premium" option at the top.

 

Management Console Examples:

 

Client:

Edited February 1, 2015 by MrKJLS

[MrKJLS]

What's the memory footprint like?

 

Around 8/9MB with a scan running with the UI open.

Runs around 7MB with a quick scan running and with the UI open

Around 2 to 4MB without a scan running and the UI Closed.

 

Quick Scan Running with UI open:

UI Closed:

 

Overall the memory footprint is quite low.

Edited February 1, 2015 by MrKJLS

[Arthur]

Overall the memory footprint is quite low.

What about the Avast service (AvastSvc.exe) that runs in the background? That uses a small amount of RAM too.

[MrKJLS]

What about the Avast service (AvastSvc.exe) that runs in the background? That uses a small amount of RAM too.

 

Around 7MB for the Avast Service while no antivirus scan is being ran. When a Quick Scan is running it will go to around 20MB.

 

[ZeroHour]

How have they been ranking on the VB100?

[MrKJLS]

How have they been ranking on the VB100?

 

According to the datasheet its VB100 certified. But I'm am currently unable to find it on the VB100 site. I don't know if it is called something else on the vb100 site.

[lwalling]

They do that with the free home edition... so I expect they'll do it for business as well.

 

Hi,

 

I head up the SMB business at Avast, including ownership of those nag messages. We intend to take a slightly different approach than our colleagues in Consumer.

 

Rest assured we will have additional premium and free offerings - but the way we message them will be inline with the needs of a business user: not popups in a tray icon on an employees desktop/mac/mobile device.

[lwalling]

According to the datasheet its VB100 certified. But I'm am currently unable to find it on the VB100 site. I don't know if it is called something else on the vb100 site.

 

Hi,

 

While the engine in use in Avast for Business is a unique build just for business managed from the cloud, under that customization it is materially similar to that used in our consumer product - and the scoring you see online in popular tests for Avast Free and other consumer editions should give you the data you are seeking for now.

 

Thanks

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Expect it to stay lean ;)

 

Around 7MB for the Avast Service while no antivirus scan is being ran. When a Quick Scan is running it will go to around 20MB.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]28910[/ATTACH]

[pete]

Does this have the HTTPS MITM that the home version turns on by default? Edit: poking around, it does with an exception list.

 

And can I create a canary group (that gets virus definitions first) so I can detect and pull a bad update before everyone gets it?

 

For those of you testing it, have you managed to get it to play nicely on mobile devices (use proxy in school, don't use one outside school)? I was hoping for a "look at IE" or "do something based on what you can see on the local LAN" option, rather than just "use/don't use" options.

Edited February 3, 2015 by pete

[win]

This sounds like a good alternative to FEP, especially if you don't want to install sccm.

i think cloud based AVs are the way forward so i'm interested in this avast offering.

 

Anyone tried it yet? Recommended?

Edited February 3, 2015 by win

[ZeroHour]

This sounds like a good alternative to FEP, especially if you don't want to install sccm.

i think cloud based AVs are the way forward so i'm interested in this avast offering.

 

Anyone tried it yet? Recommended?

 

I am testing it here right now on several devices. So far it does seem nice.

I am not sure if you can have split licenses though, aka I would want some with free and some using premium but I *think* you have to get it all as premium or all free.

[ZeroHour]

Initial play around is impressive being honest. It picked a few things up Windows Defender couldnt.

The web console is missing a scheduled task option (if implemented it could easily and fairly be a premium feature ) to setup scans during evenings and ideally wake the kit to run.

[lwalling]

Spot on. This is currently per product, ie you could potentially combine some free services other than anti-virus down the road or vice versa.

 

What's your opinion of this purchase logic ?

 

I am testing it here right now on several devices. So far it does seem nice.

I am not sure if you can have split licenses though, aka I would want some with free and some using premium but I *think* you have to get it all as premium or all free.

[lwalling]

Additional features and functions are coming soon, throughout 2015 you'll see minor and major improvements in Avast for Business both free and premium.

 

Task scheduling is one of the larger items we need and it's a very near term add, things like update proxying and remote deployment have been (unexpectedly) frequently requested also and are coming soon.

 

Initial play around is impressive being honest. It picked a few things up Windows Defender couldnt.

The web console is missing a scheduled task option (if implemented it could easily and fairly be a premium feature ) to setup scans during evenings and ideally wake the kit to run.

[lwalling]

Avast for Business is designed to simplify deployment and management tasks for a small to medium sized business or organization; therefore there is no administrative console or backend installation required at all locally - everything management related is cloud based. Now, to be fair, FEP & it's SCCM backend has more enterprise-specific configurability that we may never have as it breaks our simplification mantra as well. From a scalability perspective if our feature-set fits, we can go to any number of devices - no limitations there.

 

Also, in the case of Avast for Business, the cloud component is the console. The anti-malware side still has a local agent that installs locally on a Mac or PC and functions in a manner similar to all other Avast products, but is managed in the cloud to simplify a business owner or IT managers life .

 

Thanks.

 

This sounds like a good alternative to FEP, especially if you don't want to install sccm.

i think cloud based AVs are the way forward so i'm interested in this avast offering.

 

Anyone tried it yet? Recommended?

Edited February 4, 2015 by lwalling

[ZeroHour]

Spot on. This is currently per product, ie you could potentially combine some free services other than anti-virus down the road or vice versa.

 

What's your opinion of this purchase logic ?

 

To be honest I would prefer the ability to buy X licenses of Premium and allocate them to the relevant machines rather than an all for one model. I can see plenty of scenarios where you dont want firewall/premium features which would stop you buying ANY licenses for premium. Clients/desktops you would want firewall/premium but a lot of people manage/disable windows firewall on servers via group policy and considering the firewall is one of the *big* features of premium you dont want to pay for a feature you wont use. Office 365 takes this model and being able to chop/change the number of licenses you have each month makes it much easier to maintain and save cash where possible when you dont need X feature.

 

The malware coverage isnt as good as malwarebytes which seems to have the best detection rate for malware but its not great for more traditional viruses.

 

I have also encountered a bug with the boot time scanner and my surface 3, it gets to 40% but hits a file and freezes forcing a cold restart. I think the file is a Onedrive cache entry (aka a stub not a full file) which is what Onedrive allocates when you have files but have not offlined/accessed them.

 

Edited February 4, 2015 by ZeroHour

[lwalling]

Thanks, fair point. There will be many more modules in Avast for Business down the road and we'll potentially consider a more flexible approach on mixing and matching specific services in the manner you've described. Great feedback.

 

On malware detection, sure agreed every tool has it's strong points and I think we do a great job. I love MBAM personally for clean-up. They acquired some great zero day detection technology last year as well helping them up their ante. Would you see value in having a broader array of detection technologies offered in Avast for Business over and above pure AV?

 

On the bug report, I've dropped that to my support teams to capture - if you don't mind sending full details to walling at avast dot com I'd appreciate it, just in case the team needs more information.

 

 

To be honest I would prefer the ability to buy X licenses of Premium and allocate them to the relevant machines rather than an all for one model. I can see plenty of scenarios where you dont want firewall/premium features which would stop you buying ANY licenses for premium. Clients/desktops you would want firewall/premium but a lot of people manage/disable windows firewall on servers via group policy and considering the firewall is one of the *big* features of premium you dont want to pay for a feature you wont use. Office 365 takes this model and being able to chop/change the number of licenses you have each month makes it much easier to maintain and save cash where possible when you dont need X feature.

 

The malware coverage isnt as good as malwarebytes which seems to have the best detection rate for malware but its not great for more traditional viruses.

 

I have also encountered a bug with the boot time scanner and my surface 3, it gets to 40% but hits a file and freezes forcing a cold restart. I think the file is a Onedrive cache entry (aka a stub not a full file) which is what Onedrive allocates when you have files but have not offlined/accessed them.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]28996[/ATTACH]

[lwalling]

Pete, we don't have the ability to group in the manner described to accomplish this goal - however, more advanced task scheduling isn't far out and should facilitate it.

 

On the proxy question, that's a tough one. If we need to explicitly detect a proxy I don't have a feature to manage that or push a setting based on a policy. Does your use case indicate that we need it or are things working as is?

 

Does this have the HTTPS MITM that the home version turns on by default? Edit: poking around, it does with an exception list.

 

And can I create a canary group (that gets virus definitions first) so I can detect and pull a bad update before everyone gets it?

 

For those of you testing it, have you managed to get it to play nicely on mobile devices (use proxy in school, don't use one outside school)? I was hoping for a "look at IE" or "do something based on what you can see on the local LAN" option, rather than just "use/don't use" options.

[ZeroHour]

On malware detection, sure agreed every tool has it's strong points and I think we do a great job. I love MBAM personally for clean-up. They acquired some great zero day detection technology last year as well helping them up their ante. Would you see value in having a broader array of detection technologies offered in Avast for Business over and above pure AV?

 

Basically in my mind malware and viruses are in the same category. Nowadays malware seems to be a bigger concern than the more traditional stuff and I think if you have to buy 2 products to keep your pc protected then something has failed. I have not purchased malwarebytes personally as I knew I would need something else to cover the other parts its weak at so it would be great to have a proper focus on both parts with 1 piece of software.

 

On the bug report, I've dropped that to my support teams to capture - if you don't mind sending full details to walling at avast dot com I'd appreciate it, just in case the team needs more information.

 

I will try and grab some more details tonight/tomorrow.

 

Another suggestion, could you add email notifications for alerts? right now without logging in you have no idea you have an alert. This could even be extended to optionally mail you on task complete and/or failure. Also an email for new devices would be useful.

 

EDIT: An email did arrive eventually but it would be good to allow instant notifications for things like virus alerts etc.

Edited February 5, 2015 by ZeroHour

[pete]

On the proxy question, that's a tough one. If we need to explicitly detect a proxy I don't have a feature to manage that or push a setting based on a policy. Does your use case indicate that we need it or are things working as is?

 

Most schools do use proxies for client access to the Internet. Even if it's a whitelisted site, it still has to go via the proxy because clients aren't allowed direct Internet access. On a laptop that'll spend a fair amount of time offsite a hardcoded proxy doesn't work.

 

For the Windows client you could use "Look at what Internet Explorer is doing" and for OS X, you could say "look at the system proxy settings".

 

A slightly dirtier way of doing it would be some logic along the lines of:

 

1) If a proxy is set, attempt to use it.

2) If you get a successful connection (here's an update, no update, ok status, whatever) you're done.

3) If you don't get a successful connection, try without the proxy setting.

 

WPAD support (Web Proxy Autodiscovery Protocol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) would also work.

 

But your current options (below) aren't flexible enough for mobile clients that aren't using a transparent (client doesn't know there's a proxy there) proxy.

 

Edited February 5, 2015 by pete

[lwalling]

Hi, thanks for the additional feedback. How long did the alert take to receive? It should not fit into the category of "eventually" I'd like to ask my support team to take a closer look at that with you to collect data can you PM me or email to walling at avast dot. com?

 

On the distinction of malware point, I materially agree, the kicker is no single company does everything just right - right? We are great endpoint security, while MBAM is probably one of the best cleanup tools I've ever used for instance.

 

Thanks

 

Basically in my mind malware and viruses are in the same category. Nowadays malware seems to be a bigger concern than the more traditional stuff and I think if you have to buy 2 products to keep your pc protected then something has failed. I have not purchased malwarebytes personally as I knew I would need something else to cover the other parts its weak at so it would be great to have a proper focus on both parts with 1 piece of software.

 

 

 

I will try and grab some more details tonight/tomorrow.

 

Another suggestion, could you add email notifications for alerts? right now without logging in you have no idea you have an alert. This could even be extended to optionally mail you on task complete and/or failure. Also an email for new devices would be useful.

 

EDIT: An email did arrive eventually but it would be good to allow instant notifications for things like virus alerts etc.