Avira Operations GmbH & Co. KG is a German multinational security software company that provides 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 Arnhem, the Netherlands and Bucharest, Romania. Avira also has sales and marketing offices in Beijing, China and in Burlingame, California, USA Silicon Valley.
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.
The company supports the Auerbach Stiftung, a foundation created by the company's founder, Tjark Auerbach. It promotes charitable and social projects, the arts, culture and science.
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Technology
Virus Definition
Avira periodically "cleans out" its virus definition files, replacing specific signatures with generic ones for a general increase in performance and scanning speed. A 15 MB database clean-out was made on 27 October 2008, causing problems to the users of the Free edition because of its large size and Avira's slow Free edition servers. Avira responded by reducing the size of the individual update files, delivering 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.
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.
Heuristic virus detection involves 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, although not necessarily malware; the user decides whether to act on or ignore the warning.
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 suspicious programs to the Avira databases for logging.
Firewall
Avira removed their own firewall technology from 2014 onwards, with protection supplied instead by Windows Firewall (Windows 7 and after), because in Windows 8 and later the Microsoft Certification Program forces developers to use interfaces introduced in Windows Vista.
Protection Cloud
Avira Protection Cloud (APC) was first introduced in version 2013. It uses information available via the Internet (cloud computing) to improve detection and affect system performance less. This technology was implemented in all paid 2013 products. APC was initially only used during a manual quick system scan; later it was extended to real-time protection. This improved Avira's score in the AV-Comparatives and Report from September 2013.
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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.
Products
Windows
Avira offers the following security products and tools for Microsoft Windows:
OS X
Android and iOS
Avira offers the following security applications for mobile devices running Android and iOS:
Other platforms
Avira formerly offered free antivirus software for Unix and Linux, but this was discontinued in 2013, although updates were supplied until June 2016.
Awards and Reviews
In January 2008 Anti-Malware Test Lab gave Avira "gold" status for proactive virus detection and detection/removal of rootkits.
AV-Comparatives awarded Avira its "AV Product of the Year" award in its "Summary Report 2008."
In April 2009 PC Pro awarded Avira Premium Security Suite 9 the maximum six stars and a place on its A-list for Internet security software.
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 magazine, which ranked it first on its website. Avira was among the first companies to receive OESIS OK Gold Certification, indicating that both the antispyware and antivirus components of several of its security products achieved the maximum compatibility score with widespread network technologies such as SSL/TLS VPN and Network Access Control from companies including Juniper Networks, Cisco Systems, and SonicWALL.
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.
AV-Comparatives gave Avira its Silver award (for 99.5% detection rate) in its "Summary Report 2010."
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.
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.
Avira has also received numerous VB100 awards.
AV-Comparatives awarded Avira its "AV Product of the Year" award in its "Summary Report 2016."
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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