Unchecking all the packers for the File System Shield is very wrong
I unchecked all archives type for the testing purpose (otherwise I would rather leave the self-extracting executable and droppers checked)
"Test whole files" on the Sensitivity page
This is for added security and it does not slow down my system significantly even during boot (I have a basic computer),
unless it scans very big files (hundreds of MB) which are almost always archive files or video files.
the outer content only, without unpacking the compressed data if the particular archive unpacking is disabled
Here I disagree, from the time it takes, the whole Zip file seems to be scanned.
Unless you mean that the WHOLE raw binary datas (without unpacking them) inside the Zip file gets scanned.
So, you haven't told avast! not to scan archives as the title suggests (on contrary, you told it to scan EVERY file) - you only told it not to unpack the content.
This is the interesting point :
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1. would Avast, with the settings I gave, scan the whole Zip files as binary files WITHOUT unpacking them ?
(which would lead to nothing since zip encoding should scramble the virus signatures, probably...)
In this case the thread title could be changed to :
'Is it possible to have the File System Shield scan all files but ignore some archive types (those unchecked in the packers tab) ?'
2. scanning all files except archives seems still highly desirable since these archive files are somewhat 'inert', they are often big,
and their content will be scanned when they will be unpacked (with the possible exception of self-extracting executable and droppers, I don't know).
What I'm trying to achieve, but does not seem possible, is to realtime scan all files and whole files on read/write/execute,
except files recognized as archives by Avast (not from their extension but more securely from their file header).
Archive files would only have their header read by Avast so as to be recognized indeed as archives, and thus ignored by the scan.
I can understand that this option might not be available currently, so it would join the wishlist, if it makes sense of course.