Editor’s Note: This product has been removed from viewing as part of this site because it has been discontinued. Please see our review on the avast! Standard Suite, which offers much of the same features.

The avast! solution for small (and medium) business security comes in the form of another great software solution, the avast! Advanced Suite. This small business internet security suite provides comprehensive protection for client PC workstations, file servers, and email servers.

The Advanced Suite is composed of several components, namely the avast! Professional Edition for workstations, Server Edition for file servers, avast! for Linux/Unix Servers, the Exchange Server Edition, and the Distributed Network Manager.

Certifications:

The Advanced Suite provides a great deal of protection and security for your entire business by incorporating a variety of features and utilities. One of these is the lightweight firewall Network Shield. Technically it’s an intrusion detection system, and not a traditional firewall, but the resident protection analyzes all network traffic to keep malware away from your business.

Detection & Cleaning:

The crux of avast! Advanced Suite is found in its antivirus protection. The antivirus kernel is well equipped, and has proven it’s worth and efficacy by passing the ICSA Labs certification process and receiving the Virus Bulletin VB100%.

Avast! is even equipped to protect your computers from new threats specifically engineered to disable your security software. Furthermore, avast! includes advanced rootkit detection and removal tools. The avast! engine is designed to delve deep into your system and scan a host of archives and packed files, and even NTFS data streams.

Avast! Advanced Suite works in real-time, and effectively monitors and filters all web traffic. The Web Shield serves as an invisible proxy browser to protect you from internet threats, and will work with all the major browsers without affecting performance.

Internet Protection:

Avast! protection from spyware has proven effective, receiving the West Coast Lab’s Checkmark. The antispyware protection is actually implemented at the individual workstation level as well as incorporated in avast! Server Edition. With avast!, you don’t have to worry about malicious spyware or adware collecting information about your company, employees, or trade secrets.

The avast! Professional Edition component also protects users from threats that take advantage of other communication methods like P2P networks and IM. Instant Messaging has become a staple of office communication, but can pose some unique threats, so it’s nice to be able to utilize the technology but not have to worry about malware.

Management Features:

File server protection is provided from avast! Server Edition. Resident protection is offered in real-time, and furthermore keeps viruses from even initializing at startup. Users can perform a boot-time scan to locate and remove viruses before the operating system even starts.

The Advanced Suite from avast! includes a command-line scanner for advanced users (like the IT professionals who will likely be managing your small business security. This utility can be used as a pipe filter, controlled manually.

Another important feature of the software is the ability to perform PUSH updates. If there is a new update that is essential to get out quickly, avast! will use their own e-mail providers and send users an expedited update via SMTP protocol.

Antivirus for mail and SMTP servers is accommodated by the avast! 4 Exchange Server plug-in, which effectively protects your Microsoft Exchange servers with the same level of protection found throughout the Suite. The software can even be configured to block specific dangerous attachments within emails (inbound or outbound).

Ease of Use:

Avast! Advanced Suite is easy to use, and easy to integrate into your business. The interface comes with two varieties, simple and enhanced. The administrator will definitely want to use the enhanced user interface to have ultimate access and control.

Advanced Suite is designed to work efficiently with your business resources, providing speedy security without requiring too many resources. The software is engineered for optimum performance by taking advantage of modern server hardware that utilize multiple processors.

The entire solution can be easily managed and controlled using the Distributed Network Manager. The central manager provides a good deal of flexibility and scalability while you manage your entire security suite.

Help & Support:

With avast! Distributed Network Manager, you can install and deploy the entire system across your entire network with ease. New machines added to the network can be automatically detected for almost immediate security.

After setup, you can configure avast! to alert you when needed. These notifications can be sent to the administrator through e-mail, network printer, IM messages, or even a Windows popup.

Avast features some advanced reporting functionality, making it easy to monitor and document a number of statistics and actually see how the software is working for you.

Avast! is very scalable and can accommodate your unique company size and hardware. Advanced Suite can be purchased in licenses from 10 to 199, but you don’t have to purchase in a certain increment (if you have 26 computers you can buy 26 licenses). Of course there are discounts for larger numbers of licenses, so you should probably leave some room for growth. Licenses can be purchased for 1, 2, or 3 years.

Summary:

Securing your business resources, information, and hardware is important, and avast! Advanced Suite is certainly a good option. Covering your entire business from servers to endpoint requires a robust internet security suite, and avast! delivers a powerful solution with advanced features and effective security. Overall, avast! doesn’t offer the best internet security for small businesses, but it’s still a competitive solution.

avast! Advanced Suite Screenshots

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