antivirus -- Avira free is now "in the cloud"

Darren Dirt · March 10, 2014, 08:20:49 PM

So today I noticed my Avira on my home PC said "Your antivirus has been elevated."

At first I thought it was talking about a risk level being "elevated". Then I read the rest of the text and kinda say "whew" and then "wuh?":

"We just moved your antivirus scanner to an online cloud. Your protection is now lighter and more powerful than ever before." [ Show me what I've got ]

So what are your guys' thoughts here? I understand that in theory collecting all users' virus candidate submissions to the cloud = a Wikipedia-like movement towards "collective wisdom" when it comes to true positives etc. But does this mean slower overall computer usage as file access is sent to the cloud all the time? Or (based on this summary page*) will my local scanner keep a database of "safe" files so repeated accesses are not slow anymore? Or [??] ?

*

Quote from: http://www.avira.com/en/avira-free-antivirus
Overview of the Avira Protection Cloud

1: A suspicious file is detected
2: The file's digital fingerprint is sent to the cloud
3: The file is checked in real-time against our database
4: The file is identified as either safe or infected
5: The information is returned to the device

PS: and on the subject of long-enduring softwaring being "upgraded", hey hey hey look what Youtube did this week: Safety mode has hidden comments for this video. Show hidden comments wtf!? (I think it's a default if you are not logged in to YT, you see NO COMMENTS, i.e. it "protects you" from all the scary dangerous words of 12-year-olds

)

Mr. Analog · March 10, 2014, 09:44:34 PM

No internet no antivirus?

Darren Dirt · March 11, 2014, 11:02:55 AM

Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 10, 2014, 09:44:34 PM
No internet no antivirus?

I get the feeling that the cloud stuff is "extra", and hopefully it is seamless failover when there is no internet connection (perhaps after an initial pause delay while it tries to talk to the cloud). Seems like the infographic is saying it uses collectively-mined data inside "Professor Cloud" to answer a "question" asked by the client on the PC, and once answered that question doesn't need to keep getting "asked", so it would make sense for it to not be crippled if "the professor is not in".

Sorry for the weird metaphor. Low blood sugar right now methinks.

Mr. Analog · March 11, 2014, 11:05:23 AM

Unplug your LAN and try a virus scan

haha

Darren Dirt · March 11, 2014, 04:38:04 PM

Quote from: Darren Dirt on March 10, 2014, 08:20:49 PM

PS: and on the subject of long-enduring softwaring being "upgraded", hey hey hey look what Youtube did this week: Safety mode has hidden comments for this video. Show hidden comments wtf!? (I think it's a default if you are not logged in to YT, you see NO COMMENTS, i.e. it "protects you" from all the scary dangerous words of 12-year-olds )

HOLY ESS-WORD, did Google *break* Google Maps? Or make it amazingly awesome? Just checked it out today in Chrome, and wtf? It's... different. Interface completely re-jigged, and looks like only "Street-Map View" or "Google Earth View", and that's it. But with GEV you can see the buildings "in 3D" now, even for Edmonton:

https://goo.gl/maps/x4yGl

However to achieve that illusions, to produce the angles and height and perspective, a lot of detail seems to be now lost compared to the old "Satellite View", to see what I mean just try zooming in on TREES down to a low level... weirdness.

It also makes The Statue Of Liberty look really really weird. Like halfway between Minecraft and RL. (Apparently with a single click you can return to "Classic Google Maps". Also, there's a Tour of the new stuff, just click the [?].

Tom · March 12, 2014, 12:19:46 AM

RE Gmaps: yeah, I've apparently been in their beta test for this view for months. I dont hate it, but some features that some people liked (ie: me) didn't make the transition. like "Foo Bar's near XYZ location". I think thats something that didn't make it. Or maybe they added it back since I last checked...

Mr. Analog · March 12, 2014, 06:56:20 AM

On my tablet I'm still getting satellite view but it's surprisingly high resolution.

Darren Dirt · March 14, 2014, 10:56:21 AM

Quote from: Darren Dirt on March 10, 2014, 08:20:49 PM
PS: and on the subject of long-enduring softwaring being "upgraded", hey hey hey look what Youtube did this week: Safety mode has hidden comments for this video. Show hidden comments wtf!? (I think it's a default if you are not logged in to YT, you see NO COMMENTS, i.e. it "protects you" from all the scary dangerous words of 12-year-olds )

It's actually a default even if logged in, just seems to be on initially once they added this feature, but easy enough to turn off (just not very *obvious*)

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/174084?hl=en
"Safety Mode" toggle is at the bottom of the page when viewing any video. Nice UI choice, devs, since many of us never scroll to the bottom of the page when viewing a video!