avast and firewalls

[schmidthouse]

I used OA++ for a couple of years with absolutely no problem with Avast.
The Emisoft forum is also pretty good for support.
Just found the firewall a bit too busy and didn't like the "Banking Mode". Didn't work properly!!

[drummerman]

Well, I was over at the Comodo forum, the first time even though I have used the thing for a long time.

You are right, a fix for the issue is unlikely soon.

I've got to make choices.  Its almost like loosing a good friend as both programmes have done their job great for me (as far as I know), save the odd glitch or two 

Its clearly not an issue that Avast needs to solve but it does pose a vulnerability which at the moment I am not clear how serious (or not) it is in the greater scheme.

I could, I guess, revert to avast 6 for the time being and be done with it, loosing some extra protection of the latest version.

Tricky, I like Comodo and I like Avast.

Its a bit like two stroppy children playing in a sandbox (!). Which one to remove ... ?

[DavidR]

No contest, get rid of comodo, you didn't expect anything else did you

Seriously comodo will have to fix this at some point as this is the new windows redirection API and will be exclusive in windows8 and depreciated in win7 although it still supports the old API, you could pick it back up later. As mentioned there are other firewalls that are compatible and I certainly wouldn't downgrade my AV protection for the sake of a firewall.

Avast 7 already has win8 compatibility and has for some time, looks like comodo have some distance to go yet on win8 compatibility.

[drummerman]

As always, you make sense.

One question though is about something I don't quite understand; Is avast using heuristic scanning or is it based on known codes? - What are the pro's and con's of these?

Thanks

[DavidR]

Avast uses a number of different methods, standard virus signature detection, Heuristics, behavioral, Emulation, Reputation (file known or widely distributed, etc.). The AutoSandbox being another tool in the box.

The idea of heuristics is to try and detect something suspicious by other methods rather than its known virus signature, that is a very simplistic explanation. It is trying to detect that which hasn't yet been detected conventionally by virus signature. So the word heuristics can actually mean many different things and if you read some companies interpretation of heuristics they differ to fit what they are doing.

[drummerman]

Thanks

regards

[DavidR]

No problem, glad I could help.

[Arnold72]

Thank you for the replies.Im going to stick with my OA and avast combination as they seem to work just nicely together.

[DavidR]

You're welcome.