Avast! 7 - renew or replace your security software?

When you buy security software, such as an anti virus program, you subscribe to virus definition updates. You may also get program updates too. The big question is whether you should continue your subscription when it runs out or whether you should buy new security software. Which is best?

I must confess that I don't have any hard data on this, but I am willing to bet that a brand new anti virus program or other security software will beat an old one when it comes to detecting and removing malware. There may not be much difference between this year's and last year's program, but I certainly wouldn't use a program that is more than a year old.

I prefer to buy a new anti virus/spyware program each year rather than renew my subscription on the grounds that the latest technology and techniques for dealing with malware have to be better than last year's or the year before. Not only should the detection and removal be better, you usually get a better interface and more features too. The price isn't much different because discounts on security software are common. No-one pays the list price do they? Shop around!

This leads me on to Avast! 7, which is a brand new version of the anti virus/spyware software and security suite. There are three versions, Free Antivirus, Pro Antivirus and Internet Security. You can see the differences here and they range from basic to comprehensive security. The one you choose depends a lot on your technical knowledge and experience and whether people use your computer who are less knowledgable about security than you. You might want the complete security offered by Internet Security for a child's computer, but if you're a techie type you might prefer the freebie that's lean, straightforward and doesn't get in your way.

Avast! 7 features streaming updates, so that the program's malware definitions are more up to date than previously. Presumably this means that there are smaller and more frequent updates. Sometimes viruses spread very quickly and in a day or two they can infect thousands or millions of computers. (Actually, this tends to be old ones with out of date software and old versions of Windows with Windows Update turned off.)

Avast! 7 has a new File Reputation (FileRep) feature and this is community driven. If you try to run a program it is checked with an online database to see if it is OK. If lots of people have it and no problems are known then it will run OK, if it is unknown then you are warned. You can choose to run it anyway and flag it as safe if you know it's OK and this means you won't see warnings in the future when you run the program.

It has improved sandboxing and this means that a program or web browser is isolated from the rest of the system so it can't infect your PC or files. WebRep has been improved too and this checks websites and URLs you visit. It protects against known bad websites and against phishing.

I let Avast! 6 upgrade itself to Avast! 7 on an XP computer and on restarting it hung on the welcome login screen. After powering off and restarting it seems to be OK though. I think it is safer to download the new version manually, then uninstall the old one and install the new one afterwards. Avast! 7 seems to be pretty good and it is well worth upgrading.