Today we released the Update EU2 for all Avira AntiVir 9 products. The developers fixed a bunch of small bugs which some users occasionally ran into. The update is being distributed via automatic update function, so there is no need for users to do anything.

To name a few of the bugs fixed: Our developers further improved the IMAP support of the MailGuard. For example, in rare circumstances an application error in Thunderbird occurred when using 1&1 IMAP accounts.

Some issues with the firewall of Avira Premium Security Suite have been solved as well. These mostly are of cosmetic nature like firewall dialogs did not fit on the 800×480 pixels display of the EeePC. Some trusted publishers weren’t always properly detected in applications, resulting in more firewall prompts for user action. For the server versions the update corrects some errors, too.

Additionally we’re planning to release more international versions of AntiVir 9 tomorrow. We’re going to publish the software versions Avira AntiVir Premium, Avira Premium Security Suite and Avira AntiVir Professional in Italian, Spanish, French and Russian. The free Avira AntiVir Personal will be available in Italian and French then as well!

Dirk Knop
Technical Editor

We have introduced a new feature for the Firewall integrated in the Avira Premium Security Suite. The feature is called Privileged applications and is about making the life of a user much easier.

In AV8, if you allow a program to connect to the network, its traffic is going to be filtered through the adapter rules first. This means, for example, that if you want to start a program which needs some responses from the network while the Security Level is High, the incoming traffic will be blocked. So, even if you allowed your application to access the net, it must obey the Adapter rules. If these rules filter some traffic needed by the application, it will simply not function correctly.

Technically speaking, the traffic is now filtered like this:

Fig. 1: The new firewall architecture.

What has changed?

In the new version of the firewall, for the applications which are marked as privileged we changed the order in which the rules are applied. The adapter rules are ignored for the traffic coming to the process ID of the application which was allowed with the privileged status. From this point on, when you allow an application in the firewall, it will simply function correctly, no matter what kind of security level you have.

How to enable this special status

When the popup for the application is displayed, you must enable the checkbox „allow privileged” and click on the „Allow” button. That’s it…

Fig. 2: Firewall popup for new applications.

Once you allowed such an application, you can see and change its status in the Configuration Center:

Fig. 3: Enhanced configuration of the firewall.

The applications which are normally allowed by clicking only the „Allow” button without enabling the checkbox above are marked as „Filtered”; the applications which had the checkbox active, are marked as „Privileged”.

The initial value of the checkbox can be configured in the Configuration Center, under Popup Settings.

Fig. 4: Configuration for the application popups presets.

WARNING:
This feature is a huge step toward a better usability of the product. However, please be very careful which programs you allow as privileged.

Sorin Mustaca
Manager International Software Development