Web Shield seems to cause slow internet connections

[bong2x]

  putting check point at the road increase traffic. let the criminals in and, imprison in the chest so traffic flow fast don't be afraid avast is good police they will catch them. and you will be the judge either you will kill them or imprison at the chest fore ever just a point of view

[Yezinki]

MBAM Pro real time does that better with out decreasing the bandwidth.......just my views.

[EntitY]

Hi Yezinki, some users are under the assumption, that if they don't have a certain problem on their machine, than the problem Must be in the "complainers" setup, firewall-conflict, etc...I see this on different pc-security type forums. Sometimes this is the case, but not in all cases. I don't know if it's a Fanboy type of syndrome or what. Slight rant, but needed to be said...

[Canonman]

Try un-installing Comodo as its device drivers are still active even though you disable the firewall. 

OK, I uninstalled the Comodo firewall and rebooted.  Speeds are still slow.

Try downloading a large file like setup_av_free.exe:
http://www.filehippo.com/download_avast_antivirus

Results from downloading suggested file twice:
Web Shields OFF = 32 seconds
Web Shields ON = 67 seconds

Canonman,

First, what shields do you have running - If you have the behavour shield running try (a) turning it Off and (b) uninstalling it. I have uninstalled it on two of my PC's, and for about 95% of the time, my internet performance using either IE7 or Firefox and with the web shield on and using the default values is quite good. In fact there is almost no significant difference when the web shield is turned off and speed tests are carried out.

For the other 5% of the time, and at this stage virtually at random during normal browsing, internet speed with either IE7 or Firefox becomes really slow, and it doesn't seem to be on any particular site. If anything Firefox seems to be affected more than IE7. Access to the same site at the same time from another computer running Avast 4.8 via a common router is quite normal.

Restarting the browser doesn't seem to help. When this problem occurs turning off the Web shield completely does appear to overcome the problem, and turning it back on most often brings the problem back (although some times restarting the web shield cuts off access to the internet altogether and then requires a reboot). In any event a reboot without changing the shields also seems to remove the problem.

At this stage it appears that in my case turning off "use intelligent stream scanning" reduces the extent of the problem, however because the system can work for 95% of the time with no significant impact on performance, the problem is not going to be easy to find. (I may be on the wrong track altogether but I wish I could see what is happening to packet retry level when the problem is present)

One thing that you might look at - the web shield is processing data in realtime, and there might be some clash or interaction if you have other software also providing real time protection.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

Turning of Behavior Shield doesn't appear to change anything at all.


For those of you having similar issues, would you mind sharing your PC specs to see if there are any common hardware matches?
I'm grasping at straws at this point.

[rdmaloyjr]

With WebShield enabled:

Download Speed: 19312 kbps (2414 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 3571 kbps (446.4 KB/sec transfer rate)

With WebShield disabled:

Download Speed: 29967 kbps (3745.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 4437 kbps (554.6 KB/sec transfer rate)

WebShield definitely slows down my internet!

avast! 5.0.418 Free  Speeds checked with Speakeasy.

[rdmaloyjr]

For those of you having similar issues, would you mind sharing your PC specs to see if there are any common hardware matches?
I'm grasping at straws at this point.

Compaq Presario SR1315CL Desktop PC by HP
AMD Sempron 3100+ 1.8 GHz
2 gigs of RAM
XP sp3 (32bit)

[rdmaloyjr]

On my Gateway laptop with AMD Turion Dual Core TL-60
with 4 gigs of RAM  Win 7 (64bit)
avast! Free 5.0.418

I'm not experiencing slowdown with WebShield on.

No speed up with WebShield off.

Default settings.

[gdiloren]

Weird! The web shield feature of Avira Premium is also said to slow down a lot internet speed. May be we have to suffer this for complete protection. Still, I'd like to see this solved in the next AVAST 5 release, I know AILWIL can do it!!!

[EntitY]

Let's hope so gdiloren, because "if" Panda cloud gets it's act together, it will be some stiff competition for Avira and Avast...

[gdiloren]

WebShield was also tested with only Windows FW and also with OA FW. No change. Slows connection by almost half. Note though that with many installations/uninstallations of AV and FW it leaves traces on the PC, like I sure have still remnants of PCTools AV I installed last year I can't get rid of. May be it affects the behaviour of AVAST protection and that's why other people are reporting no problem with their AVAST FREE 5.0 version while others do.

[EntitY]

That is a thought gdiloren, but I reinstalled XP Home two weeks ago, so not the case here anyway. You probably tried using PCTools Removal Tool and Ccleaner in safe mode, so I won't bring it up. lol

[rdmaloyjr]

Weird!

gdiloren,

My Gateway laptop with AMD Turion Dual Core TL-60
with 4 gigs of RAM & Win 7 (64bit) has so much more processing
power and speed that nothing seems to slow it down.

My Compaq desktop with the Sempron doesn't quite have as much power.
I guess that explains why no WebShield slowdown with the Gateway, but
WebShield slows down the Compaq.

I hope the ALWIL Team will find a way to to make WebShield
less demanding while still having good protection.

[Hally]

Hi 

Like I've Said Before...
I'm still experiencing the same problem with Avast 5 as I was with Avast 4.8 
* My little Internet Globe Icon keeps disappearing from the Taskbar.
Opening a browser or webpage always brings the Globe Icon and my Internet straight back again 

However!

No Problems Here .. When it comes to speed 

I'm on an... Up To 8Mbps - Broadband!
And my speeds are the same now as they were before - Avast 5 




Hally

[YoKenny]

@ Hally

I'm on an... Up To 8Mbps - Broadband

That's the best they can do and is totally dependent on the number of subscribers on using the same link as you.

DSL vs Cable - Real-World Speed
In practice, cable's speed advantage over DSL is much less than the theoretical numbers suggest. Why?
• Cable modem services can slow down significantly if many people in your neighborhood access the Internet simultaenously.
• Both cable modem and DSL performance vary from one minute to the next depending on the pattern of use and traffic congestion on the Internet.
• DSL and cable Internet providers often implement so-called "speed caps" that limit the bandwidth of their services.
• Some home networks cannot match the speed of the Internet connection, lowering your performance

http://compnetworking.about.com/od/dslvscablemodem/a/speedcompare.htm

I pay for 6Mb/s and get close to that all the time.

[jimb11]

Hi  

Like I've Said Before...
I'm still experiencing the same problem with Avast 5 as I was with Avast 4.8  
* My little Internet Globe Icon keeps disappearing from the Taskbar.
Opening a browser or webpage always brings the Globe Icon and my Internet straight back again  

Same problem here. Without avast 5 installed it happens once a day but with avast 5 installed it happens all the time. So web shield isn't compatable with something on my computer.