Avast Free Antivirus for Mac Beta [Mac Security]

Avast has announced availability of the beta version of avast! Free Antivirus for Mac.

The new version has been almost totally reworked compared with our previous solution for the Mac OS,” said Vlk, in an announcement at Avast official forum. Avast Free Antivirus for Mac features three shields and an on-demand scanner. The Web Shield together with the Mail Shield checks incoming data from the Internet for malware. While the File Shield scans all programs stored and executed from your Mac hard drive.

It was earlier thought that Mac doesn’t need any anti-virus. With the recent Mac Defender malware outbreak, users are thinking otherwise.

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Features of Avast Free Antivirus for Mac

  • On-demand scanning: It’s possible to scan the (whole) file system, network volumes or a mounted removable volume. You can also run a custom scan. Scan reports are automatically archived and are accessible from the GUI at anytime.
  • On-screen alerts: Alert messages are displayed on-screen when a threat is detected.
  • File Shield: The File Shield scans the binaries of started applications and all files when they are modified.
  • Web Shield: The Web Shield monitors and filters all HTTP traffic coming from web sites on the Internet. Connections from your web browser are redirected to the Web Shield module. The Web Shield in turn connects to the requested web server and while downloading the content, it simultaneously scans it for viruses and Trojans. Only clean data is delivered to the browser, all malware is stopped before it gets saved on your Mac.
  • Mail Shield: The Mail Shield monitors and filters all POP3 and IMAP traffic coming from mail servers on the internet. It does not prevent saving of infected files (doing so could lead to irreversible data loss), it just detects them. The File Shield prevents any infected attachments from causing harm to your system.
  • Automatic updates: The scanning engine is automatically updated with our regular VPS database updates.

If you want to test the beta version on your Mac, simply download it from: http://public.avast.com/dev/mac-beta1/avast.dmg

To know about the present issues and bugs about the beta version of the antivirus, visit their forum here.

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