Why choose avast! Internet Security?

avast! Internet Security provides complete antivirus, anti-spyware, antispam, and firewall protection, complemented now by new avast! SafeZone™ technology. It creates an isolated virtual desktop, invisible to any possible attacker, where you can do your online shopping and banking securely.

Shop and bank online with total privacy

Worry-free social networking and web surfing

Prevent identity theft

Keep your email inbox safe and clean

Antivirus and anti-spyware engine 

• Innovative scanning engine protects against viruses, spyware, and other malicious agents.

Real-time anti-rootkit protection

• Prevents stealth malware (‘rootkits’) that, when loaded by the computer’s OS, are invisible to ordinary scanners. 

Silent Firewall 

• Stops hackers, using heuristic and behavioral analysis and a white list of safe applications. 

Antispam 

• Comprehensive spam and phishing filter, which works as a plug-in to MS Outlook and a generic POP3/IMAP4 proxy for other email clients. 

avast! WebRep 

• Provides website reliability and reputation ratings according to community-provided feedback. 

avast! CommunityIQ

• Our technology uses a global network of sensors to provide us with data taken (anonymously) from the actual web-browsing experiences of an opt-in group of avast! users. This info is then used to protect all avast! users with the most up-to-date information on viruses and infected websites.

• Because of avast! CommunityIQ, avast! has discovered 62,887 infected websites and protected 126,296,177 people from visiting them in the last 30 days. 

Boot-time scanner 

• Scans your computer for infections before the OS can start to activate any viruses beneath it (now applies to Windows 7 and Windows Vista). 

avast! SafeZone™ 

• Opens a new (clean) desktop so that other applications don’t see what’s happening – perfect for banking or secure ordering/shopping – and leaves no traces once it’s closed. 

AutoSandbox 

• Prompts users to run suspicious applications in the virtual Sandbox environment. 

avast! Sandbox

• Provides an extra layer of security for you to run your PC and its applications in a virtual environment – where any attacks are thus targeted (instead of your real PC). 

OS supported: 

• Windows XP SP2+ 32-bit
• Windows Server 2003, Vista, 7 (32-bit and 64-bit) only RTM versions are supported (Windows 7 SP1 RC is currently also supported) 

OS not supported: 

• Windows 2000
• Windows XP 64-bit (with any SP installed)
• Windows Server 2003 64-bit 

Intelligent Scanner

• Reduces the number of required file scans up to 80% through a white list of safe applications. Files identified as safe are not rescanned unless they change. 

Silent/Gaming Mode

• Automatically detects full-screen applications and disables pop-ups and other notifications without compromising security. 

Green computing

• Leaves a minimal “footprint” due to its efficient and effective technology. 

File System Shield

• Real-time scanning of opened/executed files. 

Mail Shield

• Scans all incoming/outgoing email for malware (a special plug-in is used for MS Outlook). 

Web Shield 

• Scans all visited web pages, downloaded files, and java scripts. Thanks to the intelligent stream scanning feature, the Web Shield doesn't slow your web browsing. 

P2P Shield/IM Shield

• Checks files downloaded via P2P programs and while using IM or “chat” programs. 

Network Shield

• Protects against network-based viruses with two main components: a URL blocker for malicious URLs, and a lightweight intrusion-detection system. 

Script Shield 

• Detects malicious scripts hidden in web pages and prevents them from hijacking and potentially damaging your computer. 

Behavior Shield 

• Stops ‘zero-day’ threats and unknown malware before virus definitions have been obtained. 

64-bit support 

• Supports the 64-bit architecture platforms of Windows 7 and Windows Vista. 

Heuristics engine

• Proactively finds malware undetectable with normal definitions and virus signatures. 

Code emulator

• Uses dynamic translation (a method much faster than traditional emulation) for both generic unpacking and within the heuristics engine. 

Automatic processing

• Infected files are processed automatically, without requiring user instructions. 

Smart virus definition updates

• Incremental updating minimizes the size of regular update files. 

Fast application of updates

• New format for the virus definition file means faster updates and reduces demand on CPU/memory, for uninterrupted computing. 

Multi-threaded scanning optimization

• Allows the splitting of large files between cores, which accelerates the scanning process on new multi-core CPUs and makes avast! run even faster. 

Wake-up/Scheduled scanning

• Schedule scanning at night or whenever you don’t need to use your PC. 

Command-line scanner

• Runs a scan directly from the command line.

Operating Systems Supported

• Windows 7
• Windows Vista (any Edition excl. Starter Edition)
• Windows XP Service Pack 2 or higher

Minimum Hardware Requirements

• Processor Pentium 3
• 256 MB RAM
• 380 MB of free hard disk space

Please note that avast! Internet Security runs only on PCs with Windows XP and newer. Older Windows operating systems (Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000) are not supported.

Please also note that avast! will not run properly if you have other antivirus software on your PC.