Avira

Coordinates: 47°39′42.613″N 9°35′31.371″E / 47.66183694°N 9.59204750°E / 47.66183694; 9.59204750

Avira Operations GmbH & Co. KG
Kommanditgesellschaft
Industry Computer software
Founded Germany (1986)
Founder Tjark Auerbach
Headquarters Tettnang, Germany[1]
Key people
 Travis Witteveen – CEO
Products Antivirus software
Number of employees
 500+ [1]
Website www.avira.com

Avira Operations GmbH & Co. KG is a German multinational and family-owned company that provides IT-security (antivirus software, Internet Security, Privacy, Identity and Performance tools) for computers, smartphones, servers and networks – delivered as both software and cloud-based services.

Avira’s headquarters are located near Lake Constance, in Tettnang, Germany. The company has additional European offices in Munich, Germany and Bucharest, Romania. Avira also has sales and marketing offices in Beijing, China and in Burlingame, California, USA Silicon Valley.[2]

With an estimated 9.6% of global market share according to OPSWAT, and over 100 million customers, Avira was considered the sixth largest antivirus vendor in 2012.[1][3]

The company supports the Auerbach Stiftung, a foundation created by the company's founder, Tjark Auerbach. It promotes charitable and social projects as well as the arts, culture and science.[1]


Technology

Virus Definition

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 problem, Avira improved the updating process by reducing the size of the individual up-datable 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]

xVDF release

In March 2014 Avira intend to release a new VDF format xVDF (e(x)tended Virus Definition File), the successor of the nVDF. It force on the loading time and size of VDF The xVDF mechanism the update volume of VDF files to a minimum affect. This allows the VDF files keep as small as possible. It also improve the VDF loading time which minimize the CPU resource consumption when loading the smaller VDF files. xVDF also extended the files to more large numbers (256 for Windows; 32 for Android), however the xVDF update mechanism will create an optimize single cache VDF files(local*.vdf) automatically on each update. The scanner engine will only load this single cache files instead of loading and merging all the downloaded VDF files on scan startup. [5]

Advance Heuristic (AHeAD)

Avira products contain heuristics that can proactively uncover unknown malware, i.e. before a special virus signature to combat the damaging element has been created and before a virus guard update has been sent.

Virus detection involves an extensive analysis and investigation of the affected codes for functions typical of malware. If the code being scanned exhibits these characteristic features, it is reported as being suspicious.

This does not necessarily mean that the code is in fact malware, False positives do sometimes occur.

The decision on how to handle affected code is to be made by the user, e.g. based on his or her knowledge of whether the source of the code is trustworthy or not.

ProActiv

The ProActiv component uses rule sets developed by the Avira Malware Research Center to identify suspicious behavior. The rule sets are supplied by Avira databases.

ProActiv sends information on any suspicious programs to the Avira databases for logging.

Firewall

Avira has removed their own FireWall Technology in Version 2014 and replace it with the management of Windows Firewall (started with Windows 7 and after), because in Windows 8 the Microsoft Certification Program forces developers to use interfaces introduced in Windows Vista.[6]

Protection Cloud

Avira Protection Cloud (APC) was first introduced in version 2013. The aim of APC is improving detection with less impact on system performance due to the use of cloud computing. APC was initially released as a sneak technical preview to selected testers.

After the initial preview, Avira implemented this technology in all paid 2013 products. When APC was first implement in Version 2013, it was only used when the users perform a manual quick system scans. Later, this technology has been extended to the real-time protection, which subsequently improve the Avira's score in the AV-Comparatives September and later Report. [7]

Partners

Avira offers its antivirus engine in the form of a software development kit to implement in complementary products. Strategic and technology partners of Avira include Canonical, CYAN Networks, IBM, itelligence AG, Microsoft, novell, OPSWAT, Synergy Systems and others.

On 4 September 2014, Avira announced a partnership with Dropbox, to combine Avira's security with Dropbox's "sync and share" capabilities.[8]

Products

Windows

Avira Internet Security

Avira Internet Security 2013 in Windows 7
Initial release 1988
Stable release 14.0.8.512 (February 12, 2015 (2015-02-12)) [±][9]
Operating system Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, and XP
Available in Multilingual
Type Antivirus
License Proprietary
Website www.avira.com

Avira offers the following security products and tools for Microsoft Windows:[10][11]

  1. Avira Free Antivirus: the free edition antivirus/anti-spyware, for non-commercial use.[12]
  2. Avira Antivirus Pro: the premium edition antivirus/anti-spyware.[13]
  3. Avira System Speedup: a suite of PC tune-up tools.[14]
  4. Avira Internet Security Suite: consists of Antivirus Pro + System Speedup.[15]
  5. Avira Ultimate Protection Suite: consists of Internet Security Suite + additional PC maintenance tools (e.g. SuperEasy Driver Updater).[16]
  6. Avira Rescue System: a set of free tools that include a 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 one on the host PC. It can be used to clean an unbootable PC, and is able to find malware that 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.[17]

OS X

Avira Free Mac Security for Mac: Runs on OS X 10.9 and above.[18]

Android and iOS

Avira offers the following security applications for mobile devices running Android and iOS:

  1. Avira Antivirus Security for Android: free application for Android, runs on versions 2.2 and above.[19]
  2. Avira Antivirus Security Pro for Android: premium edition for Android, runs on versions 2.2 and above. Available as an upgrade from within the free application.
    it provide additional Safe browsing,Hourly update and free tech support.
  3. Avira Mobile Security for iOS: free edition for iOS devices, such as iPhone and iPad.[20]

Other platforms

Avira used to offer "Avira Free Unix/Linux" for Unix or Linux Platform, but has discontinued the product as of 30 June 2013. New licenses are no longer available, but existing customers will receive updates until 30 June 2016.[21]

Awards and Reviews

In January 2008, Anti-Malware Test Lab gave Avira "gold" status for proactive virus detection and detection/removal of rootkits.[22]

AV-Comparatives awarded Avira its "AV Product of the Year" award in its "Summary Report 2008."[23]

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.[24]

In August 2009, Avira performed at 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, which ranked it first on its website.[25] Avira was among the first companies to receive OESIS OK Gold Certification,[26] indicating that both the antispyware and antivirus components of several of its security 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.

In February 2010 testing by firm AV-TEST, Avira tied for first place (with another German company) in the "malware on demand" detection test and earned a 99% score in the "adware/spyware on demand" test.[27]

AV-Comparatives gave Avira its Silver award (for 99.5% detection rate) in its "Summary Report 2010."[28]

For 2012, AV-Comparatives awarded Avira with "gold" status for its 99.6% performance in the "On-Demand Malware Detection" category and classified Avira as a "Top Rated" product overall for that year.[29]

In the AV-Comparatives August 2014 "Real-World Protection Test," with 669 total test cases tried against various security products, Avira tied for first place.[30]

Avira has also received numerous VB100 awards.[31]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "About Avira". Avira.com. Retrieved 19 July 2012.
  2. ↑ "Avira Contacts Page". Avira.com. Retrieved 24 September 2014.
  3. ↑ OPSWAT. "Market Share Report June 2012". Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  4. ↑ "AVIRA News – Free version: Avira optimizes update system". Avira.com. 17 November 2009. Retrieved 21 June 2012.
  5. ↑ "What is a xVDF and which advantages do I have". Avira.com. 23 December 2013.
  6. ↑ https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/jj124262(v=vs.85).aspx
  7. ↑ , AV-Comparative RealWorld Test September Fact Sheet.
  8. ↑ "Avira Partners with Dropbox to Bring Secure Sync and Share to Millions Globally". Avira.com.
  9. ↑ "Avira Internet Security - Download". www.avira.com website. Avira. 27 September 2012. Retrieved 17 February 2015.
  10. ↑ "Avira Official Store". Avira.com. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  11. ↑ "Avira Download Center". Avira.com. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  12. ↑ "Avira Free Antivirus Product Page". Avira.com. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  13. ↑ "Avira Antivirus Pro Product Page". Avira.com. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  14. ↑ "Avira System Speedup Product Page". Avira.com. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  15. ↑ "Avira Internet Security Suite Product Page". Avira.com. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  16. ↑ "Avira Ultimate Protection Suite Product Page". Avira.com. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  17. ↑ "Avira AntiVir Rescue System". Avira.com. Retrieved 19 July 2012.
  18. ↑ "Avira Free Antivirus for Mac Product Page". Avira.com. Retrieved 1 October 2014.
  19. ↑ "Avira Antivirus Security on Google Play". Avira.com. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  20. ↑ "Avira Mobile Security on iTunes". Avira.com. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  21. ↑ "Discontinuation of Antivirus solutions for Linux systems on June 30th 2016". Avira.com. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
  22. ↑ "Anti-Malware Test Lab". Anti-malware-test.com. Archived from the original on 19 November 2010. Retrieved 9 November 2010.
  23. ↑ "Summary Report 2008" (PDF). av-comparatives.org.
  24. ↑ "Avira Premium Security Suite 9 review" at PC Pro (27 July 2010)
  25. ↑ "Avira AntiVir Personal" by Erik Larkin, PC World (24 August 2009)
  26. ↑ "Awards for Avira products". Avira.com. Archived from the original on 14 November 2010. Retrieved 9 November 2010.
  27. ↑ "AV-Test release latest results" (2 September 2008)
  28. ↑ "Summary Report 2010" (PDF). av-comparatives.org. Retrieved 24 September 2014.
  29. ↑ "Summary Report 2012" (PDF). av-comparatives.org. Retrieved 24 September 2014.
  30. ↑ "Factsheet August 2014 Real-World Protection Test" (PDF). av-comparatives.org. Retrieved 24 September 2014.
  31. ↑ "Virus Bulletin: VB100 results overview – Avira". Virusbtn.com. Retrieved 24 September 2014.

External links

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