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Software Tips



Avast! Home Edition antivirus (freeware)


Avast! Home Edition is a complete anti-virus package, that is free for registered home non-commercial users. It contains an on-demand scanner with two interfaces (simple for novices and advanced for experienced users), an on-access scanner with Standard Shield (which protects against execution and opening malware programs) and an embedded e-mail scanner which scans incoming and outgoing email messages. avast! Home integrates with the Windows Explorer right click menu and also includes a special screen saver which is able to scan your system while your computer is not in use. Updates are incremental and frequently made available for manual or scheduled download. You can download a 60 day demo. If you wish to continue free usage beyond that time, you will need to register from the home page to obtain a free license key by email.

It's free for home use. Go here for download.

If you have never downloaded software before, check my file download tip.


Register or Re-register Your Copy of avast! Home Edition


After you have installed the avast! Home Edition, it needs to be registered to continue protection beyond the initial 60 days. Your free license is good for 1 year. Each year thereafter, you will be notified when your avast! license is expiring and you will need to re-register to obtain a new free license.

To obtain a free 1 year license, follow these steps:


  1. Go to the Avast website, avast.com


  2. Click on "support" (top line), then select "Free avast! Home Registration".


  3. You will be provided with three choices, select the one that best fits your need. (If you have changed your email address since you last registered, then register as a new user.)


  4. After you have selected a choice to register, you will be presented with a registration form to fill out. Complete the form and check the box "I understand that I have the right to use this program..."


  5. Click the "Register" button and then verify that you did not have any errors.
From this registration process, you will be sent a license key to the email address that you provided. Normally, you will receive the email within 5 minutes. Be sure to check your spam email box since it sometimes ends up there.


Once you have received the avast! license key, follow these steps:


  1. Right click on the avast! icon in the system tray. (small blue globe with the letter "a" in the lower right of your screen.


  2. Select "About avast!..."


  3. Click on the "License key..." button at the bottom.


  4. You can copy and paste the license key into the area provided or just manually type it in.


  5. Click on the "OK" button. If you have entered it correctly, you will get a confirmation message stating such.
You can check the new expiration date from the "About avast!..." dialog box under the registration key entry. If there is a "+" plus sign beside the registration key entry, click on it so the sub-entries are visible and show the expiration date.

One last step.....


Rather than have a scheduled scan, Avast scans all your files when you're not at your computer. To set this up, minimize any open windows and right-click on your desktop, then..
  1. Select properties.
  2. Select the screen saver tab.
  3. In the first box, click the down arrow.
  4. Select Avast! Antivirus.
  5. Set the wait time to 20 minutes.
  6. Click the preview button to see what Avast looks like when it is doing a full scan. Press any key to get back to the properties dialog box.
  7. Click the OK button to finish.
Anytime the Avast screen saver is running, just press the space bar to get back to where you were at.





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