New Version Of avast! for Mac (revisited)

[chrlswtt]

I purchased avast! Mac on 01/03/08. Thats coming up on 4 months ago and still no version updates. Does the Mac version have a dedicated team or is it worked on when there's nothing else to do? Not to sound bitter, but I thought I was buying into a fully supported product not an after thought. It would be nice to have a product that works quietly in the background, like the Windows version (which I see has been updated), instead of having to deal with all of the Mac versions annoying idiosyncrasies. So the question once again is, when will we see a new Mac version?

[.: Mac :.]

Last we heard was sometime in the April/May timeframe.

[megavolt17]

I am using Avast! home (free) for my virtual PC, but using NAV 11 for my Mac protection.  I am waiting for an updated version of Avast! with similar functionality to the PC version before I purchase it.  I have purchased and preordered too many things in the past to purchase something until it is available.

NAV 11 for the Mac seems to work better than NAV 11 for the PC, which amazes me.  NAV for the PC took too many resources and had too many conflicts with things including updating to the Windows XP SP3.  I am still willing to try/purchase Avast! when it is updated.

[pupusse]

By the way ,

what about the new version of avast for linux home ?


We were talking about it in May , but nothing is coming on 


Have you an idea about the date it will be released ?

[chrlswtt]

I am using Avast! home (free) for my virtual PC, but using NAV 11 for my Mac protection.  I am waiting for an updated version of Avast! with similar functionality to the PC version before I purchase it.  I have purchased and preordered too many things in the past to purchase something until it is available.

megavolt17

The thing that bothers me about avast for the Mac is that I feel like I paid my money to be a Beta tester. Half a year later and users are still trying to figure out work-arounds with no updates in sight. That is very lame!

[.: Mac :.]

I am using Avast! home (free) for my virtual PC, but using NAV 11 for my Mac protection.  I am waiting for an updated version of Avast! with similar functionality to the PC version before I purchase it.  I have purchased and preordered too many things in the past to purchase something until it is available.

megavolt17

The thing that bothers me about avast for the Mac is that I feel like I paid my money to be a Beta tester. Half a year later and users are still trying to figure out work-arounds with no updates in sight. That is very lame!

Well Avast for Mac is most likely handled by the same development staff that does the Linux/Unix Versions, so their time is split between different development projects. Due to the Smaller Market Share of Mac/Unix/Linux it would not  make sense business wise to have a separate development team for each of them.

At least thats my theory for the long wait times for the Mac and Linux Versions

[zilog]

I am using Avast! home (free) for my virtual PC, but using NAV 11 for my Mac protection.  I am waiting for an updated version of Avast! with similar functionality to the PC version before I purchase it.  I have purchased and preordered too many things in the past to purchase something until it is available.

megavolt17

The thing that bothers me about avast for the Mac is that I feel like I paid my money to be a Beta tester. Half a year later and users are still trying to figure out work-arounds with no updates in sight. That is very lame!

Well Avast for Mac is most likely handled by the same development staff that does the Linux/Unix Versions, so their time is split between different development projects. Due to the Smaller Market Share of Mac/Unix/Linux it would not  make sense business wise to have a separate development team for each of them.

At least thats my theory for the long wait times for the Mac and Linux Versions

Hallo,
the original idea (= incremental update of virus database) evolved in April into full-incremental setup of the whole program (with the update machinery nearly the same as in Windows). Integrating such windows-tied mechanism to Mac while keeping all the necessary per-user separation, no-need-for-reboot, fail-robustness etc., necessary for the "unix-like" port is a bit time consuming. Testing is even more painful (for your imagination, preparation of one testing round takes 5hr (G5) - and for whole testing you need at least 2 subsequent rounds, etc., and after each change in the binaries the hierarchy must be re-built).

I really don't understand why people expect the Mac version to look/work exactly in the same manner as the Windows avast! - the differences between Unix/Windows simply don't allow many things that are common in the world of Windows - simply because of user-separation principle. Such antivirus would look nicely, but could be also misused as "nice" security hole (user->root privilege escalation etc.).

The low-level parts of local and server-side incremental update mechanism are finished, some changes in the GUI were made before, so now it's time to put it together as the next version.

regars
PC

[megavolt17]

I don't expect the Mac version to mirror the Windows version, but I do admit the Windows version is pretty cool.  What I want is a version that can start without a pop-up window, and that can scan mail without starting the Mail app each time.  Since all new files are automatically scanned there really should be no need for tight integration with the Mail app - correct?

I am not certain if mail attachments are checked automatically when they are downloaded, or if the mail integration is the only way they are scanned.  I disabled the mail integration because my wife does not use mail (it is set up for my account).  She also did not know what to do when the Avast! app popped up when she booted.  I wonder if mail is now vulnerable to downloading a virus...

I am back to using NAV 11 because when it is running it does not confuse my wife or my kids.  No popup and no autostart of Mail.  When Avast! is updated to also do that I will try it again.  I would love to lose NAV as it is huge, and nobody knows how many system level things it is interfering with.  It blocks "vulnerabilities" which sounds like a good thing, but the list of actions it is blocking is confusing and since I doubt I am being attacked I wonder what legitimate things it is actually preventing from happening.

[zilog]

I don't expect the Mac version to mirror the Windows version, but I do admit the Windows version is pretty cool.  What I want is a version that can start without a pop-up window, and that can scan mail without starting the Mail app each time.  Since all new files are automatically scanned there really should be no need for tight integration with the Mail app - correct?

I am not certain if mail attachments are checked automatically when they are downloaded, or if the mail integration is the only way they are scanned.  I disabled the mail integration because my wife does not use mail (it is set up for my account).  She also did not know what to do when the Avast! app popped up when she booted.  I wonder if mail is now vulnerable to downloading a virus...

I am back to using NAV 11 because when it is running it does not confuse my wife or my kids.  No popup and no autostart of Mail.  When Avast! is updated to also do that I will try it again.  I would love to lose NAV as it is huge, and nobody knows how many system level things it is interfering with.  It blocks "vulnerabilities" which sounds like a good thing, but the list of actions it is blocking is confusing and since I doubt I am being attacked I wonder what legitimate things it is actually preventing from happening.

Well, some public betas will appear at the end of this month, probably.

pc

[meinrosebud]

I don't expect the Mac version to mirror the Windows version, but I do admit the Windows version is pretty cool.  What I want is a version that can start without a pop-up window, and that can scan mail without starting the Mail app each time.  Since all new files are automatically scanned there really should be no need for tight integration with the Mail app - correct?

I am not certain if mail attachments are checked automatically when they are downloaded, or if the mail integration is the only way they are scanned.  I disabled the mail integration because my wife does not use mail (it is set up for my account).  She also did not know what to do when the Avast! app popped up when she booted.  I wonder if mail is now vulnerable to downloading a virus...

I am back to using NAV 11 because when it is running it does not confuse my wife or my kids.  No popup and no autostart of Mail.  When Avast! is updated to also do that I will try it again.  I would love to lose NAV as it is huge, and nobody knows how many system level things it is interfering with.  It blocks "vulnerabilities" which sounds like a good thing, but the list of actions it is blocking is confusing and since I doubt I am being attacked I wonder what legitimate things it is actually preventing from happening.

Yeah, I agree with you, novice users I find that if a piece of software gets too vocal or interactive it does cause confusion. I appreciate how Avast for Windows is 'just there' rotating at the bottom of the screen. So if it auto loads at login and silently scans ingoing and outgoing data then it would be a great asset to my system.

[chrlswtt]

May/June has passed, the end of July has passed. All were flagged in this thread as possible dates for an update. What is the new guesstimate for a supposed update?

[zilog]

May/June has passed, the end of July has passed. All were flagged in this thread as possible dates for an update. What is the new guesstimate for a supposed update?

current state is:

- incremental update mechanism - works
- gui improvements - done
- some extra changes, requested by users - in progress
- new scanning core - built right now, next day or two thorough testing

regards,
pc

[DarkClown]

So, now that an entire year has passed, has this project just been abandoned?

[zilog]

So, now that an entire year has passed, has this project just been abandoned?

nope, but avast 5 engine things have much higher priority at the moment. but it seems that in a week or two i'll return to the mac version.
regards,
pc

[DarkClown]

Not what I wanted to hear, but I do find it reasonable, form a purely business perspective.  :'(