Unknown Viruses

Hi. I have another question, how deals avast with unknown viruses (if it does), I read that avast uses heuristics only for macro viruses… unlike other programas that uses heuristics for “unknown” viruses, or at least thats what they claim.
Thanks!

avast uses Heuristics just for email scannig. There are two tabs of settings into the mail providers.
For on-access and on-demand scanning, avast! uses only signatures.
There are a lot of discussion about Heuristics here in forums. The pros are the tentative of better detection. The cons are on false positives.

It is recommended to read this thread, it would answer your question.

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=4979

From my experience, in short, I think avast! doesn’t use only signature, it can detect some unknown malware even it has no so-called heuristics and avast! is better in this aspect than some AV that cliams it has true heuristics.

You’re right, some detection of generic malware types and other features (like WebShield) deeply increase detection.
But, after all, like said many times before, what is really heuristics… ::slight_smile: