Avira
 |
|
| Type | Kommanditgesellschaft |
|---|---|
| Industry | Antivirus software |
| Founded | 1986 |
| Founder(s) | Tjark Auerbach |
| Headquarters | Tettnang, Germany[1] |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Tjark Auerbach – CEO Oliver Auerbach – CTO Travis Witteveen – COO |
| Employees | +500 worldwide[1] |
| Website | www.avira.com |
Avira Operations GmbH & Co. KG is a German multinational and family-owned antivirus software company. With an estimated 9.6% of the global market share according to OPSWAT, and over 100 million customers, Avira is considered the sixth largest antivirus vendor worldwide.[1][2]
The company supports the Auerbach Stiftung, a foundation created by the company's founder and CEO, Tjark Auerbach. It promotes charitable and social projects as well as the arts, culture and science.[1]
History
Avira , which were first launched in 1986, are based on a scan engine named "Luke Filewalker", referring to Luke Skywalker.
On 17 October 2008, a major update to the scan engine was released, which increased scanning speed by 20%.[3]
Avira competes in the antivirus industry against BullGuard, F-Secure, Frisk, Kaspersky, McAfee, Sophos, Symantec, Trend Micro among others.
Technology
Avira periodically "cleans out" the virus definition files, by replacing specific signatures with generic ones, resulting in a general increase in performance and scanning speed. A database clean-out with the size of 15 MB was made on 27 October 2008, causing problems to the users of the Free edition because of its large size and slow servers of the Free edition. To solve the issue, Avira improved the updating process by reducing the size of the individual updatable files, resulting in the delivery of less data in each update. Nowadays there are 32 smaller definition files that are updated regularly in order to avoid peaks in the download of the updates.[4]
Consumer products for Windows
Avira offers three security products for Microsoft Windows:
- Avira Free Antivirus: This edition is free of charge. It runs as a background process which checks every file opened or downloaded. Like many antivirus programs, it can run a full or custom scan to check the computer for malware in order to remove them. It updates its virus definitions automatically everyday by default using the Internet.
- Avira Antivirus Premium: The Premium edition includes all features of the Free edition plus:[5]
- Email scanning, which supports POP3 and SMTP protocols
- WebGuard to block access to malicious sites
- Technical support
- Avira Internet Security: The Internet Security edition includes all features of the Premium edition plus:[5]
- An anti-spam module to block unsolicited emails
- A personal firewall to block hackers
- A backup module to protect and secure important data
- Prevent dangerous botnets from taking the computer system
- Parental controls to block websites unsuitable for children and teenagers
Avira offers a set of free tools including a "Rescue System" utility used to write a bootable CD which can be downloaded as an EXE or ISO file. It has its own Linux-based operating system so it does not depend on the host PC's. It can be used to clean an unbootable PC, and is able to find malware which uses the host's operating system to hide (e.g., some rootkits). The tool contains the antivirus program and the virus database current as of the time of download. It boots the machine into the antivirus program, then scans for and removes malware, also restoring normal boot and operation. It is updated frequently so that the most recent security updates are always available.[6]
Consumers products for other platforms
Avira offers Avira Free Android Security for Android v2.2 and later, as well as Avira Free Mac Security for Mac OS X and "Avira Free Unix/Linux" for Unix or Linux Platform
Reviews
AV-Comparatives awarded Avira AntiVir Premium with the highest score, the "Advanced+" distinction, in February, May, and August 2008, earning it the 2008 "AV Product of the Year" award. This large-scale comparative test saw Avira achieve an "excellent" score for its proactive detection performance. In the "Speed" category, Avira made it to the winner’s podium. In the "Summary Report 2010" it received the Silver award for 99.5% detection rate.[7]
In January 2008, Avira AntiVir was given a rating of 6.5 out of 8 in tests for detection and removal of rootkits and 71% for proactive virus detection by Anti-Malware Test Lab; both scores qualified for "gold" status, the highest award.[8] Avira achieved the highest Malware Detection rate, along with G-DATA Antivirus, 98%, and was one of five products that achieved a 90% or higher spyware detection rate in the latest AV-Test performed in February 2010.[9] AV-Comparatives also awarded Avira with an Advanced+ rating (the highest) in their latest test.[10] Avira had the highest signature and proactive detection rates in all major independent antivirus tests.[when?] In April 2009, PC Pro awarded Avira Premium Security Suite 9 six out of six stars and a place on its A-list for Internet security software.[11] In August 2009, Avira AntiVir Personal Antivirus achieved a 98.9% percent overall malware detection rate, and was the fastest for both on-demand scans and on-access scans conducted by PC World, who ranked it first on its website.[12] Neil J. Rubenking from PC Magazine gave version 10 3.5 out of 5 stars.[13]
Avira was among the first companies to receive OESIS OK Gold Certification.[14] This shows that both the antispyware and antivirus components of several of their products have achieved the maximum compatibility score with widespread network technologies (like SSL/TLS VPN and Network Access Control) from Juniper Networks, Cisco Systems, SonicWALL and others.
Avira has also received VB100 awards.[15]
References
- ^ a b c d "About Avira". Avira.com. Retrieved 19 July 2012.
- ^ "OPSWAT". Retrieved July 30.
- ^ "AVIRA News – Avira speeds up its virus scanner". Avira.com. 17 October 2008. Retrieved 21 June 2012.
- ^ "AVIRA News – Free version: Avira optimizes update system". Avira.com. 17 November 2009. Retrieved 21 June 2012.
- ^ a b "Avira Products". Avira GmbH. Retrieved 28 October 2009.
- ^ "Avira AntiVir Rescue System". Avira.com. Retrieved 19 July 2012.
- ^ "Summary Report 2010". av-comparatives.org.
- ^ "Anti-Malware Test Lab". Anti-malware-test.com. Archived from the original on 19 November 2010. Retrieved 9 November 2010.
- ^ "AV-Test release latest results" (2 September 2008)
- ^ "AntiVirus Programs Test". Av-comparatives.org. Retrieved 9 November 2010.
- ^ "Avira Premium Security Suite 9 review" at PC Pro (27 July 2010)
- ^ "Avira AntiVir Personal" by Erik Larkin, PC World (24 August 2009)
- ^ "Avira AntiVir Personal 10" by Neil J. Rubenking, PC Magazine (26 March 2010)
- ^ "Awards for Avira products". Avira.com. Archived from the original on 14 November 2010. Retrieved 9 November 2010.
- ^ "Virus Bulletin: VB100 results – Avira". Virusbtn.com. Retrieved 17 April 2011. (free registration required)
