Avira AntiVir Personal Edition Platinum 7.0 offers the effective protection against computer viruses for the individual and private use on a single PC-workstation. It detects and removes more than 50,000 viruses and an Internet-Update Wizard for easy updating. The built in resident Virus Guard serves to monitor file movements automatically, for example when downloading files from the internet. Heuristic scanning protects Protection against previously unknown computer viruses.

• Computer: Pentium or higher, at least 133 MHz

• Operating system: Windows 2000 / Windows XP / Windows XP x64 edition / Windows Vista 32 Bit and 64 Bit

• RAM: 196 MB / 512 MB RAM for Windows Vista

• 50 MB free memory on the hard disk (more if quarantine is used)

• 100 MB temporary memory on the hard disk

• Administrator rights are required for the installation

New: Windows Vista 64 Bit support.
The change to the Windows Vista platform is free of charge.

Installation of Avira Antivir was fast and easy, taking less than 5 minutes to finish. Installation is guided by an easy step-by-step wizard. We had to reboot our PC after installation.

 

2. The main characteristics of a product

• Security package with virus scanner, AntiAdware, AntiSpyware, AntiDialer, email protection (POP3) and AntiPhishing.
• One click configuration with individual selection between standard and expert configuration
• Small program and signature updates make sure that the protection against attackers is always up-to-date.

• Rootkit Protection

• Virus check of every file and archive access.
• Protection of active processes against undesired breakups.

While Avira Antivir is relatively easy to use, there is certainly room for improvement. The main window displays the current status of the antivirus and mailguard engines as well as the last virus definition update. To start a scan, you'll need to click on the second tab, click on one of the options (ie: "Local Hard Disks"), and then click the magnifying glass icon. While this is straightforward enough to an expert user, novice users may find this confusing the first time out.

One thing to watch out for is to make sure that you set up a scheduled scan on the "Scheduler" tab ... Avira doesn't do this automatically for you. Once this is done, you can more or less allow the program to run invisibly in the background and forget that it's running.

Updates

Avira automatically connects to the internet once a day and downloads updates. You can also manually start an update from the main overview screen.

Other Features

Avira is a small, lightweight app with few features that runs well on older, slower computers.

The program covers now some advanced features that were not available in free version; premium functions: - Integrated detection of ad/spyware; - Low system resources used; - Extremely fast scanning capability; - Extra protection through email scanner (POP3); - Exclusive download server for faster updates; - User-defined update intervals; - Scan function for selected directories. NEW: Phishing and Rootkit Protection.

3. Conclusion

Professional protection against viruses and malware, adware, Spyware, phishing. Realtime scanning of all files through On-Access Guard.Profile-based On-Demand scans for individually defined scan-jobs. Direct scanning of files or folders directly from Windows Explorer. Pop 3 based MailScanner.

Quarantine management to securely lock suspicious files. Scheduling of routine jobs such as updates and scans. Full-fledged reporting system. Direct online access to detailed descriptions for every detected virus. Standard and expert configuration for individually defined configurations.

Easy to use through user-friendly control center. that lets you control the program from just one central place: Activate/deactivate modules; do updates; renew your license; direct configuration of modules. Very fast performance with very low memory footprint. Very high detection rate. Very fast updates through single file update and incremental updates of virus definitions. License Manager to easily license the program.