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Otherwise it normally states “avast is waiting for command”. (Figure.11) If the use isn’t savvy in computer speak they may be confused further. It sometimes spouts little messages on the lower left hand side without really letting the user know what is happening. This toolbar is what the user is given to control the antivirus with. What exactly is the user supposed to do with this? It appears after some fussing about that the scans aren’t entirely connected and also get lost and don’t report accordingly. Save Current Scan report doesn’t really work out of the box and seems incomplete. The simplest way to mitigate all this is to just place the target folder on the Desktop and choose Scan Folder and find the way through to the desktop. The lazy way to go about it would be to choose Scan Volume but that doesn’t help on time if the user just want to scan a single archive, nested somewhere. Scan Now requires that the user set up their scanning profile (since it isn’t made available to right click and scan items such as folders, files) they must be fully “pathed” throughout the configuration including the exclusions. Uninstall (which doesn’t seem to work as advertised).

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Update checking (thought the toolbar feedback seems to be really only reactive to the one in the toolbar). The menu items (Figure.08) consist of the Licensing (although it is constantly misspelled throughout and inconsistent to the documentation in the Help) īringing up licensing pops up an obtuse and monolithic prompt (Figure.09) searching for some type of license file. Some areas even require the use to manually type in a path. At the time of this testing everything is set to advanced without any cool wizards to guide the user through the configuration. It would be great if they had an advanced mode and a simple mode. There are a lot of preferences most of them don’t make sense and are confusing (Figure.07b). In the preferences there are obvious signs of feature-creep in how the GUI is laid out and the features made available. (Figure.07) The GUI makes it confusing as what exactly is happening as it uses “programmer terms” and not friendly labels.

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If the user doesn’t manually update (via it’s own updater) the software (3.1.1’s latest update is 2010) in a few minutes it updates itself to the latest and greatest engine/updates.

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(Figure.05) Post-Installation and PreferencesĪfter the install avast it presents itself by default also strangely it brings up Apple Mail (Figure.06) it gets especially odd if Mail isn’t configured (as it wasn’t in this test) already as it appears to continue to bring it up and completely prevents the user from shutting down until it is removed from using email protection from preferences. It serves as a front end and can be hidden from view. (which turns out isn’t the best option all the time).Īfter the installation is complete avast pops up this toolbar. None are explained what exactly it is they do (hence the awkwardness) all the user can do is accept them blindly and hope for the best. The default installation (Figure.04) has a few items enabled by default. (Figure.03) The standard installation takes 52 MB to install and requires typing in an administrator’s password. The install is very quick (6 screens) the installer prompts the user to set some basic preferences during the installation (which is awkward). They are quite clear in stating they don’t support anything prior/older. The requirements are pretty simple as it works with Intel/PPC processors from Tiger to Snow Leopard. Prior to even downloading the downloadable installation check over the System Requirements page ( ) to verify that the target system is up to par with what the software supports.

Note: It is very important to be sure to backup your system with Time Machine or alternative backup software (Carbon Copy Cloner) prior to installation and after verifying you have the requirements necessary to install and run adequately.

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It’s also offered with it’s PC version for a discounted rate.

It comes in a variety of subscription flavors starting at 1 Year.

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This software is not free, however they offer a free 60 day trial version to download from their website.

The software offers the following features: Avast! Mac Edition is an Antivirus software for Mac.

Avast mac security helpful or not