Heuristics

[And]

If I set the heuristics sensitivity level of avast! free av 5.1.889 from normal to high,will the scanning engine become more effective?

[Gopher John]

It may find more issues, but the chances of false positives will also increase.  It's a balancing act.  I left mine at default.

[superhacker]

By the way the performance will be affected also.

[firzen771]

i have mine set to high and performance impact is negligable if anything, i dont notice any diff and i still havent had any FPs even on high, but by the nature of it u will have a higher chance of an FP but u shuld still be fine.

[yongsua]

Not really,it depends on the AV company.For instance,ESET got good heuristic engine,low false positives and light on resources(Don't be misunderstanding,even I am currently using ESET but doesn't mean that I am not Avast! supporter anymore.That's why I am still at here.) ,but the reply from superhacker,Gopher John and And are correct too.

[RejZoR]

It may find more issues, but the chances of false positives will also increase.  It's a balancing act.  I left mine at default.

I'm using it with High setting and i haven't had a single false positive. I wish there was a way to use more aggressive settings. I don't mind a false positive here and there but i do mind stuff getting misseed...

[yongsua]

It may find more issues, but the chances of false positives will also increase.  It's a balancing act.  I left mine at default.

I'm using it with High setting and i haven't had a single false positive. I wish there was a way to use more aggressive settings. I don't mind a false positive here and there but i do mind stuff getting misseed...

Agree with you.

[Gopher John]

It may find more issues, but the chances of false positives will also increase.  It's a balancing act.  I left mine at default.

I'm using it with High setting and i haven't had a single false positive. I wish there was a way to use more aggressive settings. I don't mind a false positive here and there but i do mind stuff getting misseed...

Either setting can be detrimental, depending on the action taken by either Avast automatically or by the user.  Deleting or moving to the chest of a critical system file due to a false positive can result in a non-functioning system.

[Maxx_original]

even the highest level of heuristics is tested to not generate critical false positives and to run at a reasonable speed...

[Gopher John]

even the highest level of heuristics is tested to not generate critical false positives and to run at a reasonable speed...

Are you saying that system files and other files critical to the windows boot process are somehow checked against a database to prevent them from being targeted as a false positive?

[Maxx_original]

of course, they are... there's no heuristic allowed to produce false positives on important files.. and if nothing else, the final check of signature will help

[Gopher John]

of course, they are... there's no heuristic allowed to produce false positives on important files.. and if nothing else, the final check of signature will help

Thanks, that's reassuring.

[RejZoR]

Maxx, any plans to introduce even more aggressive heuristics? I know some of them are in action like behavioral FileInfector detection which is doing a good job, but other than that i hardly ever seen any kind of proactivity on this end. Now i know you want to keep FP at a very low level but still i'd like to see some more action from it. Slightly more.