I do wonder how Hardened Mode works now given there is no more option between Moderate and Aggressive setting, it's just ON or OFF.
-> https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=224223.msg1489862#msg1489862
So, entirely useless then. Great. Aggressive at least used extensive whitelist. Moderate just plops a block message for everything even tiny bit suspicious... Which is why I never used it coz it was more annoying than Aggressive...
Can you elaborate a bit? I always thought the difference between moderate and aggressive was basically just the threshold (how popular the executable is)...
I'm not 100% sure about hash whitelisting, but I would guess it's the same... and I'm rather sure the digital-signature whitelisting is the same.
Hardened Mode in Moderate triggered even on legit apps just because they "behaved" suspiciously. Flipping it to Aggressive all of a sudden allowed them to run those, but blocked all that weren't whitelisted. It was actually much more bearable mode to live with thanks to whitelisting and also more secure at the same time because it blocked everything that wasn't whitelisted.
Or you guys just had Moderate mode entirely broken and wasn't even using whitelist for Moderate mode even though it should have. So, I really don't know how you have it set up now without the Moderate/Aggressive modes as selection.
I'd also appreciate the explanation of the new Advanced Threat detection feature that requires sharing with 3rd parties... We don't know what it shares and who are said 3rd parties...