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Service Pack 2 for Avira AntiVir v10

28
Jun
2011

Eight months after the release of the SP1 on November 2nd 2010, we deliver the Service Pack 2 to all AntiVir v10 products today: Personal, Premium, Premium Security Suite, Professional and Server. Avira’s Service Pack 2 update will be made available as product update to all customers, paid and free in English and German. The other languages will follow in the next few weeks.

Please make sure you have enabled Product Updates by choosing the first option in Configuration -> Update->Product Update.

Why should you update?

We have fixed many issues which our users reported and we have improved the protection overall by enhancing the heuristic detection and the repair functionality. Additionally, we have enabled the protection of the product itself and that of the entire operating system by enabling automatically the advanced process protection which prevents malware to terminate the Avira processes and to change the registry keys of the system. The antirootkits protection was enhanced in order to be able to detect new methods of hiding malware.

Please check the links below in order to see a full list with the improvements and changes which this Service Packs 2 brings.

Because we updated some of the drivers, a reboot is needed.

You must restart your system after SP2 is installed in order to use the new drivers. Please save your work to prevent any loss of data. Please read here about how to prepare for the reboot if you are in a company: http://www.avira.com/en/support-for-home-knowledgebase-detail?kbid=841 and check this document for the default values http://www.avira.com/files/support/FAQ_KB/EN/Restart_Behavior_AV10_SP2_Prof_EN.pdf

 

The Avira SearchFree toolbar for Internet Explorer and Firefox

The SP2 brings also an optional toolbar to the users of the AntiVir Personal Free. If the user installs it, uses the toolbar and clicks on the links provided, Avira gets some money from the provider of the toolbar, the well-known search provider Ask.com. In exchange, the user gets a feature which increases his security while browsing. The feature is the web scanning and filtering functionality provided by the WebGuard. Normally, the WebGuard component is present only in the paid versions (Premium, Premium Security Suite, Professional) but now it is given for free if the toolbar is installed. So, you get more security by only installing the toolbar without being forced to use it. Webguard is a transparent system proxy for HTTP and FTP. It doesn’t filter secured connections (HTTPS). Every page which is downloaded by the computer (browser or any other service) is first compared against a local blacklist and if it proves to be malicious (hosts malware or phishing) gets blocked. If the page passes this level, it is saved in a temporary folder and scanned by the scanning engine for malicious content.

The toolbar can be installed during the update process or later using the setup (by performing an installation change). Details are provided in the FAQ articles presented below. It is also possible to uninstall the toolbar at any time, but this will also uninstall the Webguard module.

Many of our readers have heard bad things about toolbars. Some of them are true, some are exaggerations.

I would like to point out some important details about this toolbar which Avira provides as an Opt-In feature (opt-in means that you must manually choose to install it, otherwise is not installed). The toolbar is installed fully anonymous. No login information is required to use it, not even an email address. At the installation time it is possible to change the default search provider to Ask.com but this can be deactivated with one click. For more information about data collected, please read the Ask’s privacy policy available here: http://sp.ask.com/en/docs/about/privacy.shtml .

More details are available here in the FAQs on our website:

Sorin Mustaca

Data Security Expert

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