Hello everyone,
there is a new beta version ready - build 26.8.11103.
Please be informed the following information is related to all products based on Gen Stack Client shared code-base.
Release Notes
What is New
Protection & Antivirus
Protection engine improvements: Updated the core protection engine with reliability and correctness fixes identified during an automated quality review. Scanning and threat handling should be more consistent across edge cases.
Security hardening for file processing: Strengthened security in the component that prepares and packages files for analysis, addressing findings from an automated security review.
What Was Fixed
Protection & Antivirus
Domain name correction: Fixed an incorrect domain name used by the protection management service, which could affect protection status reporting.
AMSI scanning in Windows services: Fixed the antivirus interface rejecting in-process scan providers, which blocked AMSI-based scanning inside Windows service processes.
NVDA screen reader compatibility: Self-defense no longer blocks NVDA screen reader helper processes, so assistive technology works alongside the security suite.
Browser bridge update after product update: The browser integration component now updates to the correct version after a product update instead of staying on the old build.
Privileged scan access hardening: Restricted advanced scan types to verified callers only, reducing the risk of misuse by untrusted software.
Shared protection handler access: Limited access to shared protection handlers to trusted callers only.
False positives when certificate checks fail: Certificate trust lookups are now retried after a communication failure, which previously could flag legitimate programs — including Chrome — as threats.
Self-protection bypass via folder rename: Closed a gap where renaming a parent folder could bypass self-protection.
Large hosts file scanning: Hosts files larger than 16 MB are now scanned correctly.
Scheduled Smart Scan notifications: Notifications for scheduled Smart Scans work again.
Additional security fixes: Addressed several internal security issues: hardened privileged HTTP downloads, prevented sensitive vault keys from being written to log files, fixed unauthenticated TLS secret-store poisoning, closed a WDAC hash-deny bypass in self-protection, and fixed a memory leak in internal data handling.
VPN
VPN Troubleshooter reliability: Improved reliability of the VPN Troubleshooter diagnostic tool. Some failure cases are still being addressed — see Known Issues.
VPN module after activation: The VPN module now appears correctly in the license response after product activation.
VPN profile builder cleanup: Removed obsolete VPN profile builder code that is no longer used.
Firewall
TCP throttling control: Added fine-grained control for TCP throttling in the network stream filter, improving traffic management.
QUIC packet support: Added support for coalesced QUIC packets in the QUIC network filter.
Thunderbolt adapter detection: The firewall now detects Thunderbolt peer-to-peer network adapters.
Network hub description: Updated the firewall network hub description for clarity.
Driver Updater
System Restore point management: Driver updates no longer create excessive System Restore points.
Restore and install error dialogs: Fixed restore failures showing the wrong dialog, error dialogs showing an empty version number, and backup restore losing its status after a failed restore of a broken backup.
Reboot-required state: The UI now correctly shows when a reboot is required after a driver update, and this state persists across service restarts.
Driver status accuracy: Fixed devices pending revert being shown as outdated, false post-install verification failures, interactive installs misreporting failures, and download-stage errors being skipped automatically.
Disconnected devices in list: Disconnected devices no longer appear in the driver list.
Offline scan notification: The offline modal now appears when you start a scan without an internet connection.
Backup revert history: Backup revert history is now tracked correctly.
Vulnerability scan integration: Added vulnerability scanning to the Driver Updater v2 engine.
Backup store retention: Driver backups are now pruned automatically by age and total size cap.
Engine selection and statistics: Driver Updater engine version (v1/v2) can be selected via runtime configuration. Engine status statistics are now available.
Licensing & Subscription
License cleanup on uninstall: The license consumer ID is now removed correctly during uninstallation.
Upgrade and downgrade stability: Fixed a crash that could occur when upgrading or downgrading a subscription that includes Media Scan.
Cross-sell telemetry: Corrected inaccurate cross-sell telemetry data.
License initialization speed: License initialization is faster on startup.
Cleanup
Mozilla database compaction: Cleaning Mozilla browser databases no longer takes an unusually long time.
Blocked file handling: Cleanup no longer fails when it encounters files locked by other programs.
Backup
USB backup speed: Improved throughput for backups to USB drives.
Installer
Machine-learning model support: Installer changes enable the machine-learning protection model for all users.
Installer migration stability: Improved reliability when stopping the installer component during product migration, and added a safeguard before branding data download.
Software Updater
Per-user product updates: Per-user software products are now updated correctly after you log on.
Other improvements
General stability and maintenance: This release includes additional fixes across the suite: GUI folder recreation, download retry behavior, network communication improvements, telemetry updates, and internal tooling updates. These changes improve overall stability without changing visible features.
Known Issues
Support Tool
[Critical] Support Tool communication failure: The Support Tool may fail when communicating with the protection service. Workaround: restart the protection service and try again.
Core Service
[Critical] Service communication failure: Some processes may fail when communicating with the protection service through the dispatch interface.
Protection & Antivirus
[Critical] Crash in identity protection agent: A crash can occur in the identity protection agent under certain conditions.
Crash after clean install: A crash may occur in the identity protection agent immediately after a clean installation.
Licensing & Subscription
[Critical] License revoked during refresh: In rare cases, your license may briefly show as revoked when the license stability check and a license refresh happen at the same time. Restarting the product usually restores the correct status.
Privacy Control
[Critical] Missing privacy scan categories: Privacy scan results may not show category values in some cases.
Firewall
Network profile overwritten when disabled: The firewall may overwrite the Windows network profile even when the firewall feature is turned off.
User Interface
Browser UI crash on some systems: The user interface may crash on certain virtual machine configurations due to the embedded browser component update.
Files left after uninstall: Some files related to the updated browser component may remain after uninstalling the product.
VPN
VPN Troubleshooter always fails: The VPN Troubleshooter diagnostic tool may report failure even when the VPN connection is working. Reliability improvements are in progress.
WireGuard peer configuration parsing: VPN setup may fail when WireGuard peer numbers are formatted in certain ways.
OpenVPN TCP connection timeouts: OpenVPN connections over TCP with DCO enabled may time out intermittently.
Download links:
Avast Free
Avast Premium
Avast Clear
Enjoy this beta!
We are looking forward to your feedback.
AVAST Team
