Download Avast Antivirus 5.0.656 Beta

Alwil Software has released a new version of its antivirus program and is offering it as beta, due to the large amount of changes. In version 5, the old Home and Professional editions have been replaced with Avast Free Antivirus and Avast Pro Antivirus to more clearly indicate which version is free and which is not. In addition, a version called Avast Internet Security is now available, which includes a firewall and anti-spam as extras. In this new release, several sandbox and firewall improvements have been made and many bug fixes have been made. The most important improvements are listed below.

Most notable improvements include:

• Solved a problem that could lead to disappearing of the avast service
• Behavior Shield: solved a minor stability issue (aswSP.sys)
• Performance and stability improvements in the avast! sandbox
• Changes in the engine allowing us to generically detect/block some new types of exploits
• Speed ​​improvements in the updater
• IS: fixed a vulnerability in aswFw.sys (Secunia Advisory SA40868)
• IS: upgraded to the new version of antispam engine
• Minor changes and fixes in the GUI
• Fixes in the screen reader support
• Added Danish and Hebrew language packs

The following downloads are available:
Avast Free Antivirus 5.0.656 beta
Avast Pro Antivirus 5.0.656 beta
Avast Internet Security 5.0.656 Beta

avast! Free Antivirus 5.0 screenshot, click on the image for a larger version.