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Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: jfbooth on May 13, 2009, 11:25:21 PM

Title: Avast 4.8 Pro anti SPYWARE????
Post by: jfbooth on May 13, 2009, 11:25:21 PM

I had Avast 4.8 HOME and PCTOOLS SPYWARE DOCTOR, and PCTOOLS FIREWALL PLUS.  They had conflicts .. blue screen etc.  Avast tech support, after examining hijackthis log etc recommended I dump the firewall in favor of XP's firewall, dump SPYWARE DOCTOR for some other 'free' product, and reinstall 4.8 HOME.

INSTEAD, I bought 4.8 PRO, dumped SPYWARE DOCTOR, and kept FIREWALL PLUS.  Problem is, .. 4.8 PRO has been installed for several hours (I also did a complete scan on first boot after install).  I look in my cookies folder and see all kinds of known spyware cookies:

ad.yieldmanager.txt, doubleclick.txt, quantserv.txt   and others.  These are well known spyware tracking cookies.

My question is why are they sitting there 'watching me' after installing 4.8 PRO which is advertised as containing antispyware service?  I must either be missing something or I made a bad purchase.  I see nothing in PRO that looks any different than what HOME had as far as options, configuration, etc.  Oh, .. PRO IS activated with a valid registration key.  Thank you for your comments.

Title: Re: Avast 4.8 Pro anti SPYWARE????
Post by: DavidR on May 14, 2009, 12:12:06 AM

Cookies aren't spyware but text files, tracking cookies are a joke, made into a big deal by many anti-spyware tools as for the most part that is all they ever find.

avast doesn't monitor cookies, tracking or otherwise. I use superantispyware SAS and I have disabled tracking cookie checks as essentially they are a waste of time.

In your browser block third party cookies and that will get rid of many of these cookies as they aren't for the site you are visiting. Periodically delete cookies and temporary internet files.

There are many cookie blocking tools, but I find the firefox add-on CookieSafe works very well.

Title: Re: Avast 4.8 Pro anti SPYWARE????
Post by: Pondus on May 14, 2009, 12:24:21 AM

HTTP cookie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie

Title: Re: Avast 4.8 Pro anti SPYWARE????
Post by: YoKenny on May 14, 2009, 02:36:08 AM

Welcome jfbooth

You can block those cookies by using a HOSTS file:
Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

A more comprehensive HOSTS file is hpHosts:
http://hosts-file.net/?s=Download

I manage them with HostsMan and use its browser speedup proxy HostsServer:
http://www.abelhadigital.com  <== I use the 3.2.70 Beta6 version without problems