I remember the old VRDB virus recovery database. Even though we are in avast 6 (and 7), I am curious if anyone ever saw it actually being used to help repair a file. Was there window that pops up asking you? Does the VRDB even work or was it just there to sit and pretend? Are there an screenshots of it being in action (besides it spinning in the system tray when generating)?
Also would be very nice if avast 7 would reintroduce the VRDB (yes I know since avast 5 there are new repair routines like many people said, don’t need to tell me).
Also would be very nice if avast 7 would reintroduce the VRDB (yes I know since avast 5 there are new repair routines like many people said, don't need to tell me).
Unfortunately, VRDB is a technology that could no longer keep up with the latest threats. Even if it is reintroduced with updated configuration, it will–more or less–still fail to recover a lot of files infected by the modern threats. The only best option is to drop it.
Nothing to worry though. avast! introduced new features to make up for the VRDB like sandboxing, behavior-based heuristics, etc.
In all my time using avast 4.x (several years) before the VRDB was removed in avast5, I never once had occasion to use it, not that I expected to get infected in the first place. In all that time I hadn’t seen one instance reported in the forums of its use where it was successful (for a true virus infection).
Why you might ask:
It is limited to certain files not all files are covered, generally executable files.
You can’t repair what isn’t infected by a virus, e.g. there is nothing to repair as the whole content of the file is malicious. So it is/was only effective against true virus infections, where it may be possible to remove the inserted/infected part of the file, thus repairing it.
So if the file wasn’t one covered by the VRDB and or it wasn’t a virus, you wouldn’t even get the recommendation to repair. That didn’t stop people trying to select repair, which was obviously going to fail.