14 DAY TRIAL // The next version of avast! Antivirus will feature sandboxing virtualization technology that will allow users to open suspicious programs securely and will be the first implementation of this kind in a free anti-malware solution.
With its free product having a user base of over 130 million, Czech-based Avast Software is one of the biggest providers of antivirus solutions on the market.
Avast! Free Antivirus already scores among the most top anti-malware applications in independent comparative tests when it comes to detection, low false positive rate and scanning performance.
It is one of the most complete free antivirus solutions, having implemented many technologies for free for the first time. One example of this is behavioral detection.
The company plans to follow in that trend and bring even more innovations to the freemium model with the new AutoSandbox virtualization technology.
"It is not always certain that an item is 100 percent clean but with AutoSandbox virtualization, we've created a safe space between the known good and bad content which will make life safer for all avast users, whether they are using our free or paid-for products," says Ondrej Vlcek, CTO of AVAST Software.
"It's a win-win for users, if the item is dangerous it just shuts down the virtual computer and the user's real machine remains safe. And, if the item is safe, there is no hassle from a false positive," he explains.
Sandbox process isolation is a new secure software development trend observed in recent years and helps prevent vulnerability exploitation attacks from affecting the underlying operating system.
Some of the major companies to embrace sandboxing in widely deployed software are Google, with its Chrome browser that also includes a sandboxed PDF viewer and a sandboxed Flash Player plugin, and Adobe with its new Adobe Reader and Acrobat X product line.
Version 6.0 of avast! Antivirus with AutoSandbox is expected to ship during the first quarter of this year and will also make use of cloud-based technologies.