Installing a near final, potentially buggy and unstable application on a real system with the possibility to provide feedback to developers directly. That’s beta testing. Well, it isn’t as easy as it sounds but if you are trying to summarize beta testing in one sentence you might end up with something like that. So … what […]
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Finally! After it’s been in beta for a couple of months our Avira Scout browser is now available for everyone to download, install, and use.
The post Welcome to the Avira Scout Early Access appeared first on Avira Blog.
Did you know: Our Avira Scout browser is finally freely available for everyone as an early access version. There are a few things you might want to know though, before downloading it.
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Remember the good old days when you received mails from Nigerian princes who promised you riches beyond your wildest dreams for just a couple of dollars and a little bit of faith?
The post Phishing just for you appeared first on Avira Blog.
If you appreciate a fast and clutter free computer, you most likely already know Avira System Speedup, one of our most appreciated products.
The post Avira System Speedup: Welcome to the beta! appeared first on Avira Blog.
The goal with the browser is to create an easy-to-use, secure and privacy respecting browser. These are the more advanced tactics we will be using:
Adding cloud features to file scanning was a large success. The detection quality of malicious files went straight up. Short:
On the client there is a behaviour detection kind of pre-selection. If a file is suspicious the cloud server is asked if the file is already known
If unknown:
We built incredible databases covering malicious files during the last years. We should have something similar for the browser and use our large knowledge base and server side classification tools for web threats as well.
It should look something like that:
)To get there we will have to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. We are only interested in malicious pages. If the pre-selection in the browser is too aggressive and sends non-malicious pages to us, it‘s a waste of CPU cycles and bandwidth. With millions of users as a factor, even minor slips will be expensive and annoying for everyone involved.
We will also remove private data before sending it (we are not interested in user data. We are spying on malware). Personal data is actually toxic for us. Servers get hacked, databases stolen, companies gag-ordered. Not having that kind of data on our servers protects us as well as you. I mean just think of it: Some web pages have the user name in the URL (*/facepalm*). I do not think we can automatically detect and remove that trace of data though. But maybe we could shame the web pages into fixing it …*/think*
The parts in the source that collect the data and prepare them for sending are Open Source. Here I am asking you to NOT trust us and review the code! 
I hope we find a simple solution to display the data being sent to us before sending. The only problem is that it could have a negative impact on your browsing experience. Having a modal dialog when you expect a page to load …
One option could be to at least offer a global configuration to switch cloud requests off (always, in incognito mode only, never) and show you in logs what got sent.
You want your own AV? Or protection technology in your Tetris game to make it unique? Just contact our SI department and make a deal.
Other companies have thousands of web-crawlers simulating user behavior to identify malware.
Millions of real Avira users are our scouts and sensors.
We need some branding. That would include Avira specific changes in the browser (names, logos, some other texts). But also links. This is not only relevant for brand-awareness but also to keep our users away from Chrome/Chromium support to avoid confusion (“Which Chrome version do you have ?” … listens … “we never released that, can you please click on “about and tell me the version number” … listen … “WTF?!?” => Confusion) and direct them to our support – who actually CAN help.
We will always improve the build process. There are compiler switches for features called Position Independent Executable (PIE), Fortify Source, etc. that we should enable on compilation (many are already enabled). Most time here will be spent on ensuring that they do not get disabled by accident, are enabled on all platforms, and do not slow down the browser. This task can start simple and suddenly spawn nasty side effects. This is why we need TestingTestingTesting.
Google added the Hotwords feature to Chromium and Chrome. It’s a nice feature. But it switches on the microphone and “spies” on the user (this is a convenience feature many users want). For our secure and privacy respecting browser this crossed a line though. This is the reason why we will have to verify that no “surprise !!!”-Extensions get installed by default. One more task for our testers that add verification tasks to the browser to handle our specific requirements. Keep in mind: Chrome and Chromium already have very good unit-tests and other automated test cases. We just need some extra paranoia. That’s the job for our testers in the team.
We will write blog posts covering all the features. The attacks they block, their weaknesses, what we did and will be doing to improve them. We will offer you a guided tour Down the Rabbit Hole. Go with us as far as you dare.
TL;DR:
There is so much we can do to improve the browser; without touching the core.
We reached the bottom of this specific Rabbit Hole.
Thorsten Sick
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The post Avira’s Secure Browser: Plans and Tactics (Part 2) appeared first on Avira Blog.
We were excited to welcome in Tettnang Beta testers from USA, Italy, Germany, Greece, China & Malaysia.
The members we invited to this workshop are the most active beta testers in our Antivirus for Windows Beta project and they were chosen based on the quality of their feedback and the number of forum posts or bug reports they provided.
Although they contribute to the Avira Beta Community out of their own interest, most of them are also our customers, making the information exchange even more interesting.
We offered the participants a detailed tour of the Avira Protection Lab, giving them the opportunity to meet the people behind our products. In order to provide them with a technical overview as well, our experts showed them how we are visualizing the digital threats in real time. They even had the chance to hear everything about our vision as company directly from our CEO, Travis Witteveen, and meet the company founder, Tjark Auerbach.
Throughout the workshop, most of the discussions were carried around the Avira products, the current threat landscape, but we also focused on global privacy and security topics.
We collected feedback from our guests and placed them under several categories of which Features, Usability, Product ideas and also Problems resolution were the most discussed ones.
While we were happy to discover that all participants agreed that the anti-malware technology used by Avira is one of the best in the world, they seem to think we still have some work to do to improve the product usability.
Considerin
g the number of photos shared on social media, our guests seem to have enjoyed the Avira experience. As for us, we have our To Do list before the next Beta Testing Community Workshop we are looking forward to organize next year.
Thinking about joining the Avira Beta Testing Community? Click here to register now.
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In 2001, we began our journey toward becoming the leader in consumer desktop security by doing things differently and delivering a great product for free. Today, we protect more than 175 million home computers, more than anyone else.
In 2011, we began our journey toward becoming the leader in mobile security by doing things differently and delivering a great product for free. Today, we protect more than 50 million smartphones, making us one of the top 2 mobile security providers and well on our way to becoming number one.
In 2015, we start our next journey – this one toward becoming the leader in business security. And we’ll do so by doing things differently and delivering a great product for…
…well, keep an eye on this space. We’ve clearly shown that when we focus our efforts, we know how to deliver differentiated solutions that become market leaders despite stiff competition.
We don’t do any of this by ourselves though. Over the years, we have listened to our evangelists on the forum, our fans on social media, consumer reviews, and the people who test out our products before they are released. We gather feedback, opinions, and suggestions and integrate those into Avast products.
Now we’re doing it again.
Avast Software will turn business information security on its head with our new business-grade security product designed specifically for small and medium sized businesses. But first, we need your help.
Here’s what you get:
How to join the program
As much as is feasible without delaying the product release, we’ll incorporate your comments into Avast for Business; other suggestions will be reserved for incorporation into future releases. And your business name will be added to the list of companies that will receive three months of Premium service after the product is released.
Avast Software’s security applications for PC, Mac, and Android are trusted by more than 200-million people and businesses. Please follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
