avast 4 Professional Edition

avast! 4 Professional Edition

avast! 4 Professional Edition is a collection of award winning, high-end technologies that work in perfect synergy, having one common goal: to protect your system and valuable data against computer viruses. It represents a best-in-class solution for any Windows-based workstation. This page demonstrates its most important features and provides links to further resources.

The latest version of this program is 4.7.

Enhanced User Interface (Professional Edition only)
In addition to the Simple User Interface, the Professional Edition presents the Enhanced User Interface, giving you access to all features and possibilities for extensive scanning control.

Unlike the Simple User Interface, the scanning is performed by so-called "tasks". First, you define a task, including various parameters - areas to scan, what to scan, how to scan, etc. Having the task, you can run it (possibly repeatedly). Each task generates a list of results, which you can work with later.

Another key feature, closely connected with tasks, is the Scheduler. This feature gives you the ability to schedule the tasks running, either one-time or periodically.

Additionally, it is possible to set all existing scanning options, a feature not available in the Simple User Interface.

Script Blocker (Professional Edition only)
The resident protection of the Professional Edition includes an additional module, not contained in the Home Edition, called Script Blocker. This module watches all scripts being executed in the operating system (so-called WSH scripts - Windows Scripting Host), and scans all the scripts run as a part of a web page within your web browser (Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator and Mozilla).

Automatic updates
Automatic updates are another key need in virus protection. Both the virus database and the program itself can be updated automatically. The updates are incremental, with only new or missing data downloaded: thus reducing the transfer heavily. The typical size of a virus database updates are tens of KB; program updates typically are in the hundreds of KB range.

If your Internet connection is persistent (such as an always-on broadband connection), then updates are performed completely automatically at fixed time intervals. If you connect to the Internet only occasionally, avast! watches your connection and tries to perform the update when you are online.