New in 2020.2: Bye Surf Protection, welcome Web Protection!

From the chapter ‘When history catches up with you’: Almost 15 years ago, we introduced a new protection layer in Emsisoft Anti-Malware that monitors Internet activity. At that time, the terminology ‘surfing the Internet‘ was quite common. Even more so in the German-speaking corner of the world where Emsisoft has its roots. So the logical choice for us back then was to call that feature ‘Surf Protection.’

Google Trends on ‘Internet Surfing’

Over the past decade, however, ‘Internet surfing’ fell out of favor with most people — and is now considered an odd relic from the early days of the Internet. Additionally, the feature has progressed from being a simple DNS-based host blocker to a fully-featured protection layer. It now includes web activity monitoring on multiple technological levels across many programs (not just web browsers).

These developments led us to the decision of renaming ‘Surf Protection’ to ‘Web Protection.’ Functionally, Web Protection is exactly the same as trusty old Surf Protection. It delivers the same great protection — all we’ve done is give it a shiny new name fit for the modern Internet era.

The new ‘Web Protection’ layer in Emsisoft

All 2020.2 improvements in a nutshell

Emsisoft Anti-Malware

• Changed ‘Surf Protection’ to ‘Web Protection’.
• New feature to specify custom update feeds for testing.
• Improved window design.
• Several minor tweaks and fixes.

MyEmsisoft/Management Console

• New feature to specify custom update feeds for testing.
• Restructured and extended events for email and webhook notifications.
• Improved user permissions handling.
• Improved workspaces dashboard UX.
• Several minor tweaks and fixes.

How to obtain the new version

As always, so long as you have auto-updates enabled in the software, you will receive the latest version automatically during your regularly scheduled updates, which are hourly by default.

Note to Enterprise users: If you have chosen to receive “Delayed” updates in the Update settings for your clients, they will receive the new software version no earlier than 30 days after the regular “Stable” availability. This gives you time to perform internal compatibility tests before a new version gets rolled out to your clients automatically.

Have a great and well-protected day!