| Industry | Antivirus software |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1986 |
| Founder(s) | Tjark Auerbach |
| Headquarters | Tettnang, Germany |
| Key people | Tjark Auerbach – CEO Sascha Beyer – Technical Director |
| Products | Avira AntiVir Personal – Free Antivirus Avira Antivirus Premium Avira Internet Security |
| Employees | 410 worldwide |
| Website | www.avira.com |
Avira Operations GmbH & Co. KG is a German antivirus software company. When founded, the company was called "H+BEDV Datentechnik GmbH". Its antivirus applications are based on the AntiVir scan engine also known as "Luke Filewalker" (referring to Luke Skywalker), first launched in 1988. For aesthetic reasons, the name was changed to Avira. Avira's engine has been licensed to Ashampoo, Ad-Aware, and Webroot WebWasher. Avira is one of the most widely used antivirus programs in the world, with 100 million users worldwide as of September 2009[update].[1] The company supports the Auerbach Stiftung, a foundation created by the company's founder and CEO, Tjark Auerbach. It supports charitable, social, cultural, and science projects.
"Avira security software" refers to a range of antivirus and Internet security software for the Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Solaris computing platforms by Avira.
On October 17, 2008, a major update to the search engine was released, which increased scanning speed by 20%.[2]
Avira Operations periodically "cleans out" the virus definition files, by replacing specific signatures with generic ones, which results in a general increase in performance and scanning speed. A database clean-out was made on October 27, 2008, which caused problems to AntiVir Personal users when updating because of its large size (15 MB) and because of AntiVir Personal's slow servers. For that reason Avira added an additional 6 GB of bandwidth to the AntiVir Personal Servers[3] and changed the updating process: Nowadays there are 32 smaller definition files which are updated regularly to avoid peaks in the download of updates.
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Avira AntiVir Personal is for personal use only and free of charge. Like much antivirus software, it can run a scan to check disks for malware, and can also run as a background process which checks every file opened or downloaded. It can detect and possibly remove some rootkits.[4] It updates its virus definitions over the Internet, daily by default, also opening a window with an advertisement suggesting that the user purchase Avira AntiVir Premium or Avira Premium Security Suite. Avira updated all its products to version 10.0 in March 2010.
Avira offers a rescue CD image which may be downloaded as an ISO file free of charge and used to write a bootable CD. The CD has its own Linux-based operating system so it does not depend on the host PC's[5]; it can be used to clean an unbootable PC, and may be able to find malware which uses the host's operating system to hide (e.g., some rootkits). The CD image contains the AntiVir program and the virus database current as of the time of download; it boots the machine into the AntiVir program, then scans for and removes malware, possibly also restoring normal boot and operation.[6]
Avira AntiVir Premium has several improvements over the free version, including:
Avira AntiVir Premium Security Suite has some more improvements over both versions, including:
No antivirus software can detect all malware, particularly new versions; known viruses can be detected by characteristic file or memory content, and programs capable of carrying out suspicious but sometimes legitimate activities such as finding passwords or terminating processes can be flagged for attention.
| Avira AntiVir Personal - Free Antivirus | Avira Antivirus Premium | Avira Internet Security | |
|---|---|---|---|
| AntiVirus | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AntiDialer | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AntiRootkit | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AntiSpyware + AntiAdware | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| WebGuard | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AntiPhishing | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AntiVirProActiv | No | Yes | Yes |
| AntiDrive-by | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| RescueSystem | No | Yes | Yes |
| MailGuard | No | Yes | Yes |
| Fast Premium update server | No | Yes | Yes |
| AntiSpam | No | No | Yes |
| FireWall | No | No | Yes |
| GameMode | No | Yes | Yes |
| Backup-System | No | No | Yes |
| AntiBot | No | No | Yes |
| Parental Control | No | No | Yes |
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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. 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 the latest version of Avira (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] the most recent in April 2011 (Avira AntiVir Personal).
In July 2010, a rogue security program called "Antivir Solution Pro" was reported as a threat; it is probably from the family known as AV Security Suite. This software had nothing to do with nor had any affiliation with Avira, but used a similar name to Avira's software.[16]
During summer 2011, Avira added to an update of their freeware AntiVir Personal the ask.com toolbar, often considered to be malware or spyware.[17]