Avast Free Business Cloud AntiVirus

[localzuk]

McAfee or Avast?

 

If the LEA are offering per device McAfee licenses we may get away with it. Will email them.

Avast. Wouldn't touch McAfee with a 10ft barge pole...

[LeMarchand]

Avast. Wouldn't touch McAfee with a 10ft barge pole...

 

I know, but for <£60 for 3 years. Not that whoever installed the server (before my time) at the school I just checked made any A/V provision...

[RobFuller]

Just a thought, but could you not create one account for workstations and another account for servers and just pay the premium on that account?

I know it won't be integrated together and you end up with two separate accounts to manage but you do have separate server policies anyway, just make sure you get the alerts emails for both on the email address for monitoring.

 

*Not sure if this is allow though but just thinking aloud.*

 

More than happy with the free edition on our server

Edited November 1, 2016 by RobFuller

[LeMarchand]

Just a thought, but could you not create one account for workstations and another account for servers and just pay the premium on that account?

I know it won't be integrated together and you end up with two separate accounts to manage but you do have separate server policies anyway, just make sure you get the alerts emails for both on the email address for monitoring.

 

*Not sure if this is allow though but just thinking aloud.*

 

More than happy with the free edition on our server

 

Interesting idea, but probably not as good value as the "just pay for servers" from the LEA. I wish I'd installed Avast on the servers when it was OK - not sure if it would work now.

[RobFuller]

Spin up a test VM, be interesting to find out.

[bossman]

@RobFuller

 

Done that and it is working fine for me

[Guest obsidianpillar]

Hi all, is this still offered? I've tried visiting the website posted by MrKJLS in the original post, however the "free" option has since been removed/hidden from the website? The dates on other posts seem fairly recent, giving an inclination that the product is still active. However how am I able to sign up to this?

 

I may be having one of those moments, but I can't spot the link anywhere!

 

Cheers to anyone that can help.

 

Tom

[Edu-IT]

https://id.avast.com/?target=https%3A%2F%2Fbusiness.avast.com%3A443%2F#register

[Guest obsidianpillar]

https://id.avast.com/?target=https%3A%2F%2Fbusiness.avast.com%3A443%2F#register

 

Thank you!

 

Tom

[TwistedHelixis]

One of my schools is moving from Avast to Sophos endpoint. So Sophos can automatically uninstall Avast while it installs itself I need to disable Avasts tamper proof systems, but I can't workout which setting this would be or even if Avast has a tamper proof setting. I really don't want to disable or remove Avast before Sophos is installed for obvious reasons.

[pete]

Is anyone else seeing Avast Business with todays (22-02-17) updates on Windows 10 1607 having counters.dat from:

 

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\counters.dat

 

getting quarantined as generic VB malware (VBS:Malware-gen)

 

I'm leaning towards a false positive from what I'm seeing and VirusTotal.com giving the allegedly infected files it a clean bill of health. but.....

 

Google's a bit sparse about it, though there's a couple of similar posts in the last 24hrs.

[RobFuller]

Is anyone else seeing Avast Business with todays (22-02-17) updates on Windows 10 1607 having counters.dat from:

 

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\counters.dat

 

getting quarantined as generic VB malware (VBS:Malware-gen)

 

I'm leaning towards a false positive from what I'm seeing and VirusTotal.com giving the allegedly infected files it a clean bill of health. but.....

 

Google's a bit sparse about it, though there's a couple of similar posts in the last 24hrs.

 

I've seen this today on two (Win 2016) servers. Was a bit worry but like you but after some investigating it appears to be a false positive.

[pete]

Cheers, /r/avast is blowing up with WTF? threads.

 

Apparently, definition 170222-0 fixes it, but I haven't verified that yet: https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=197572.0

[pete]

If you're inexplicably seeing people logged in with temporary profiles from ~01-03-16 to now across Win 7 and Win 10, without a lot of rhyme or reason, it's probably Avast. We had a spate of it this morning.

 

There's a thread beginning on the Avast forums here: https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=198161.0

 

If your user hive looks something like this (before reboot of an affected PC) and you're getting temp profiles on login, it's likely to be Avast.

 

 

Post-reboot, the hives are back to how they should be, but whatever Avast is doing locks ntuser.dat and so Windows falls back to a temp profile. On the Windows 10 machines I've checked, rebooting without touching the faulty profile has brought it back. If you attempt to flush the cached profile it fails because ntuser.dat is locked until the next reboot.

Edited March 6, 2017 by pete

[localzuk]

Thank you @pete. That was causing me no end of grief this morning. Confused me because we don't use roaming profiles!

[pete]

There's a Spiceworks thread here: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1970504-user-profile-service-failed-the-logon?page=2

 

on the same topic. The Avast rep is encouraging everyone to open a ticket if they're affected.

 

Temporarily disabling the Avast self-defense module also apparently fixes it.

[bossman]

I've had an update from Avast on my ticket:

 

Hi Bossman,

 

We are aware of the issue and currently testing a fix for the problem. If all goes well with testing we should have a release tomorrow to resolve.

 

Thanks,

 

On that note also I have come across a problem with the new lite installer it doesn't play with the parameters which used to work with the superseded version:

 

 

This is the current version which I downloaded yesterday does anyone have any idea why the "/VERYSILENT /NORESTART /SP-" switches don't work!

 

Thanks in advance

[bossman]

Hi All,

 

Thanks for your replies, I have now sorted it!

 

Cheers have a good day all of you

 

Regards

Bossman

[TwistedHelixis]

I am i the process of moving over to Sophos, but thought I should point out that after the last update I am no longer asked for a password to uninstall Avast. I am simply going to add remove programs, clicking un-install and it removes avast.

 

Just thought I should let you all know.

[pete]

^ I'm thinking of something similar with Eset. "Free" in the case of Avast is quickly becoming "actually more expensive than throwing £2-3K a year at an alternate vendor" given the disruption the latest daftness has caused.

[bossman]

We all sorted again after a quick update from Avast, having scoured the network we seem to have normal profiles again and no temporary ones, nice one Avast for quick response,

 

Cheers

[bossman]

We all sorted again after a quick update from Avast, having scoured the network we seem to have normal profiles again and no temporary ones, nice one Avast for quick response,

 

Cheers

[Pacarcher]

so, is everyone aware that Avast for Business Free is no longer available, and current users will need to pay for it when their next years free licence expires?

I only found out by accident and then confirmed it by logging a support ticket.

 

They're telling me I have 45 days left before it expires. Also, it's not possible to find out when your expiration date is from the console, support have to let you know.

 

To say I'm disappointed ins an understatement and I've sent them a message to say as much.

 

How late would they have left it before informing me that I needed to buy licences for it?

 

Anyone else aware of/experiencing this?

 

Cheers

Paul

[localzuk]

Nope, I really wasn't aware of that so have emailed them to ask.

 

If so, that's annoying as we've only just finished migrating everything over to it!!

[LeMarchand]

so, is everyone aware that Avast for Business Free is no longer available, and current users will need to pay for it when their next years free licence expires?

 

That's very bad news if they stick to that. Guess I need to look at what MS include with EES...