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Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: matti-san on June 28, 2005, 08:56:23 PM

Title: No override capabilities
Post by: matti-san on June 28, 2005, 08:56:23 PM

Greetings Avast! Gurus!

First of all, thanks for a GREAT product. I love it.
But I absolutely, positively also know that a program i have is not a virus, and that Avast! throws a false positive. So maybe the program is not well coded or whatever. But there are three problems with Avast!

• It has no means to let the user specify that the found program is OK and that Avast! should ignore it now and in the future too.
• Therefore, the only way I can continue running the "offending" program is to leave the Avast! Warning window on my screen for the duration(There is no "minimize" button). Since that screen is forced to remain on top, it really prevents any real work to be done on a 800x600 resolution laptop and closing it using any of the available buttons will kill the program I need to run.
  
• Avast Virus Report on your website should have a selection box labelled "I think this is a false positive" and a place to explain why for your subsequent investigation. This would help you too.

Poo-poo happens. Just because you flag it, does not necessarily mean it is a virus, just that it is very, very likely to be a virus.

• Could you please consider an over-ride button for your users?
  
• Could you please consider expanding the Virus Report to include questionable item reports or to provide another form dedicated to such items?
• While I got your attention, could you please consider removing your obvious marketing survey from virus reports to someplace else? It is off-putting enough that I will actively avoid sending any virus reports back to you. The reason we dumped McAfee was because of their focus shift from technical superiority to marketing superiority. Don't do that to your customers, please.

All the best
matti-san

Title: Re: No override capabilities
Post by: igor on June 28, 2005, 09:07:47 PM

If a false positive occurs, the easiest way is to submit the affected file to virus@avast.com (preferably packed with ZIP or RAR and protected with a password); the file will be checked and if it's really a false positive, it will be fixed. False positives are not a "normal thing", so we certainly won't include an "Ignore" button because of them, that would be too dangerous.

Also, you can put the troublesome file into the list of avast! exlusions (you are interested in the Standard Shield exclusions, I guess) - it should get rid of the warning. However, we would appreciate if you could send us the file so that we could fix the problem.

Regarding the virus report - well, I think you don't have to fill the items you don't like, do you?