Virus Database Menu Option

[Dallas3super]

In version 4.8 (free) there was a menu option where you could search for virus signatures avast checked.
Has this been removed from version 5.0 (free)?
If so, is there an avast website option where you can do the similar check?

[igor]

Yes, it was removed, because it was completely useless.
And no, there's no viruslist on avast! web.

[Dallas3super]

Igor:
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I actually found it a really good feature.
I didn't use it all that often, however -
When news reports (tv, newspaper, etc) were hyping a new virus threat,
I would check to see if the [generic] signature was already in the avast
database.
(I don't remember any other a/v software having this, other than a
search option on their websites.)
Maybe it's just a comfort thing.  But I liked it.  One vote for resurrecting it.
(Or at least a search option on the website, as aforementioned....)
Wishlist item.

[DavidR]

The problem being that there is no standardisation or convention on virus/malware naming. So the same piece of malware may well have multiple aliases in other security programs.

So to try and compare with the avast database is no guarantee that it covers whatever malware name reported in a newspaper, etc. So useless in effect and this is I believe what Igor is getting at.

So for me too it has little purpose and frequently cause more issues than resolutions. Most commonly AV X has more detections than avast, well avast's virus database doesn't count possible detections just signatures. Probably the one closer to your thought, but AV X detects this virus but avast doesn't when yes it does it is just a different name.

So rather than comfort it could have the reverse effect.