Dear All,
My friend has the free Avast and I have a question.
Does the Avast free version protect against rootkits like say, Kaspersky does?
Thanks,
cnon
LOL are you joking?
Avast! even payd version is VERY BAD against rootkits! both pro and free doasn’t have antirootkit tools.
That’s what I thought. :‘( :’(
Well, I guess it is down to scans with AVG Anti-Rootkit Free then. How often should we scan for them?
Thanks,
cnon
If you do not browse dangerously, I wouldn’t scan more than once a month…
Of course, if your computer starts to have any weird behavior, you can scan immediately.
Why should he be joking? He just ask a question!
But I agree, rootkit scanning should be added to avast. And no…I am not joking 
Whilst avast! doesn’t have an anti-rootkit function, it does have a number of rootkit signatures, obviously these have to be detected before the rootkit gets established.
times 100
cnon
It doasn’t mean it’s unnesesary. I sad it this way because I am tired to whait when Alwil will make next version of Avast! with antirootkits and other features like Heuristic, Self deffence and so and so… :-\
I didn’t say it was unnecessary or that avasts rootkit detection was good, just what the situation is.
Hi all :
Since most, if not all, of the "Regular" Helpers on these Support Forums
believe in the "Layered" Approach to security, rootkit detection and
possible removal, is BEST left to SPECIALIZED ( "Stand Alone" ) programs.
I do NOT advocate Alwil getting very "involved" in the Rootkit "Sector"
of computer security .
Add me to one of the advocates of the layered defense. Rootkits and trojans in particular (and to a lesser extent, adware) are best defended against by utilities specifically designed for them. Sure, there’ll be some overlap (which never hurts, of course) - any good a-v should be fairly effective in detecting trojans, for instance, but it probably won’t be nearly as effective as a “dedicated” a-t.
Hi ye all,
I have to agree with Spiritsongs every malware program according to its nature as the anti-malware Bible says: an anti-spyware against spyware, an anti-virus program against virus, an anti-intrusion against intrusions, an anti-trojan against trojans, that is the way layered protection should be. So if you start after rootkits there are specialized proggies to do this on-demand Gmer and hookexplorer for instance and several other. No overbloated do-alls that weigh too heavy on your machines and have their own “blind corners”. Before you know it your firewall program comes with a spyware blocking toolbar or an anti-phishing plug-in. Do you want that? Layered protection and a cocktail of programs, not too much and also not to little, that is my opinion, and my experiece taught me, the best way to go!
polonus
I think it’s not a good position, ALL good AV softwares have spetial tools against rootkits, today it’s must have tool I think. About Adwares I can say that I tried many AV’s and Vista Security Center only on Avast! reports that it’s not a anti-adspy application…
List of AV’s who have anti-rootkits and anti-adspy: Kaspersky, Symantec-Norton, NOD32, F-Secure, Avira, Sophos, BitDefender, McAfee… :
I’m afraid many of this posters in this thread are actually a bit confused about the overall situation…
:-\
Vlk
Hi Vlk,
Can you explain your position or the position you defend a bit further. I think avast is a versatile product and that is what you are aiming at without outgrowing the original formula. Am I right there?
polonus
-
The original question was whether avast protects against rootkit, and the answer here is: “of course”. My estimate is that nowadays, 30+ percent of malware actually comes with some kind of rootkit (to protect/hide its files), and if we weren’t able to block rootkits, we’d be missing a huge number of malware.
-
Another question is if avast is able to detect (and more importantly, remove) active rootkits if installed on an already compromised machine. Now, the answer is: “in many cases no”, and that’s indeed where specialized anti-rootkit tools do a better job. That said, I can say now that we’re coming up with a new rootkit detection/removal utility shortly.
-
Someone said that most AV programs already contain some rootkit detection/removal tool. However, have you actually measured the success ratio of these tools? We have, and the results were quite amazing. Only a handful of the tools is actually doing a decent job. The morale of the story is that if someone says a product “can deal with rootkits” doesn’t actually mean that it’s doing a good job.
-
While “layered defense” is a good concept, it doesn’t quite work here. The frontiers betwen Trojans, Backdoors, Worms and other types of malware are now so vague that there’s no specialized anti-Trojan, anti-Backdoor or anti-Worm tools anymore. Anti-rootkit tools are a bit different (as they are “heuristic” in their nature, i.e. they search for hidden items, without any need of defitions/signatures), but still, the technology also belongs to AV programs.
Hope this helps,
Vlk
Thanks for this explanation, Vlk, this is what a lot of avast evangelists like to hear.
polonus
If we are confused it is because there is little, rather no information in the virus database other than a malware name, according to the virus database avast detects rootkits, not how.
So clarification would be nice.
Try also searching for [Rtk], this will reveal more names.
Anyway, as I already said, a big number of malware nowadays can only be charactererized as “combined” or “blended” threat - i.e. it is a Trojan, it is a Backdoor, it is a Rootkit (and often, it is also a mass mailing worm etc.). So, the way we name it cannot really indicate of it’s a rootkit or not…
a bit away from the main subject.
but avast doesn’t have self defence? will it have it?
and wat is it btw is it an important feature?