WOW! really 6-12 months i am trying Avast 4.8 Pro, so DavidR Your saying the new version the Beta is stable for everyday use, perhaps i should switch?
I switched on two Vista machines and am quite happy with 5-but there are still a few bugs that affect a few people.
My OS is Windows XP Service Pack 3, I may take Version 5 out for a test ride. I assume best to uninstall Avast 4.8 first .
I’m saying nothing of the sort, my comments are a direct reply to the post above mine, where Jack 1000 is going to keep 4.8 until it is no longer supported, even when avast 5 final regular release is available.
I said only that support for 4.8 could last for 6-12 months after the final release of avast 5 (not a beta build or RC build) and not that v5 is 6-12 months away. I made no comment about the stability or otherwise of the beta build.
I’m not using it as it was clearly stated at the start of the beta that it isn’t recommended for live systems. I tried an earlier beta which was not ready for a live system so reverted to 4.8 and for me that is where I will stay until the final release of avast5.
Whilst this beta build 5.0.221 is fine for many people some are experiencing problems and I feel the next refresh should clear some of these issues. So we will have to see the response to that release in the beta sub-forum, before making any decision on if you feel it is ok for a live system or not yet. That is a decision for the individual based on how averse they are to beta builds, especially on security software and their acceptance of the risk that that might entail.
Okay, DavidR I do apologize for implying that. I’m quite happy with Avast 4.8 I simply misread your reply earlier. Thank You for clearing the matter up.
I am running Version 5 beta2 and it is not crawling in bugs and has very few issues that have been acknowledged and will be fixed when V5 becomes generally available.
OK,
Maybe I should not have said “crawling with bugs” LOL! But there are some known bugs and as of now, I am happy with 4.8. The 6-12 month support range was almost exactly how long I thought 4.8 would be around. (AFTER Avast 5’s release) Thanks for providing that time-frame for us.
Jack
Nothing official has been said about the support time frame for avast 4.8.
The time frame range is a personal thought of one of the Alwil team, so like all things not cast in stone. All that has been said officially on the avast.com site is that win9.s, winME support (and they can only use avast 4.8.) will be to the end of 2009 (soon). That would be a back handed implication of support for avast 4.8.
So the personal comment by one of the Alwil team could effectively extend that support, but can’t be taken as official.
Well, unless you are using an older OS (pre-XP … and I used win 95 up until 2-3 years ago) there isn’t much sense in sticking to 4.8 once Avast 5.0 is officially out. You would miss out on detection improvements and thus be under-protected.
Even if this is (unofficially of course) true, is it reasonable (in the sense of secure) to run a pre-XP operating system? I remember that with Win 95 it was hard to get a good (in some cases working) anti-virus. It’s only after switching to Avast that I saw how un-secure my old system was.