We all know what computer viruses are, and although most people can't define them exactly, everybody knows that a virus is one of the last things you would like to find inside your computer... Let's leave the official definition aside and move to our topic - a program designed to help you fight this threat that's fully compatible with Windows Vista.

At this time, there are only a few choices available to Windows Vista users when it comes to antiviruses, and avast! Home Edition is one of the most acclaimed solutions for home users. Free of any charge for home and non-commercial use, avast! Home Edition stands out from the crowd with its excellent interface, detection capabilities and performance.

The next step should be obvious - go to the official page , download the 12.5MB setup package, install it and restart your computer in order to gain full time protection against threats, and all for free. In the meantime, let's see some of this program's features.

The antivirus we have here is able to scan inside most archive types, including 7ZIP and RPM, and it also comes with support for a large number of executable packers, such as PKLite, UPX or FSG.

Behind the nice skinnable interface, there's a powerful resident protection module, able to detect almost any virus before infecting your computer. Why "almost"? Well, every antivirus producer says that its product comes with 100% protection, but nothing is perfect.

Apart from the resident file s canner, another real time protection feature monitorizes incoming e-mails and news, protecting you from threats that can infect your computer through the SMTP/POP3/IMAP4/NNTP protocols.

As I was saying earlier, nothing is perfect, but the feature that brings some antiviruses closer to achieving perfection is the ability to use heuristics. To make things simple, I will only say that heuristic analysis allows avast! to protect you against unknown viruses and worms based on the suspicious behaviour noticed taking place inside your computer.

Legal or not, P2P (peer-to-peer) programs are used by millions of users all over the world, and there's no need to say how popular are the instant messaging programs!

Since viruses spread with the speed of light using these two methods, avast! comes with two excellent shields that protect you from most IM and P2P threats. Is this cool or what?

The Netwok Shield protects your computer against known Internet worms and other attacks, acting like a lightweight firewall. All network traffic is analysed, and malicious data packets are blocked.

At last, the Web Shield, a unique feature that can be found in avast!, protects you from any viruses that may enter your computer using the HTTP protocol, straight from various websites.

The Good

avast! Home Edition is fast, doesn't take up much of your system's resources and provides excellent protection to its users. Fully compatible with all Windows Vista versions, this program is a "must "!

The Bad

For all those "skin freaks" out there, there are only three skins included in the setup package, so having at least a dozen of them would be a good thing to add in the future, but other than that... everything's just fine.

Conclusion

I know that some of you may think something is missing here, but let me tell you this - avast! Home Edition uses scanning technology continuously improved since 1988, and despite the fact that it may not be perfect yet, at least you can trust it more than many other similar products.

Don't wait for viruses to get you, but get them first! With avast!, this is no longer something you have to pay for, as long as you're not using it for a commercial purpose or inside an organization. If that's the case, then you can get the commercial edition, but maybe we'll talk about that some other time... but for now, stay safe with this excellent free antivirus!

Download avast! 4 Home Edition

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