Avast WEBforum
Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: Hermite15 on September 27, 2010, 07:17:22 PM
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...just found out, after updating it to version2.36.1233 >>> included on my system are Avast5 and MalwareByte. Haven't used mbam for a while so there was nothing to delete, but usntr.log (persistence cache log file) was included for Avast. As it's not protected by the self-defense module, that was easy. This said that's just a log file, this won't break your Avast...but it might be needed for troubleshooting purposes...well sometimes, mainly during beta testing phases. They must have considered that the file contained private data...which is probably true but okay, just wanted to mention that and send a little warning ;)
ps: other Avast log files are protected, so they can't be deleted like that.
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I quite like the new add in to ccleaner, got rid of 28meg of old avast junk :)
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I unchecked the Avast5 option in the Applications section right away, whilst it shouldn't be able to delete protected files, I can't see it needing to delete any avast files. The deletion of the usrntdat.log (not usntr.log) would be pretty pointless (would slow subsequent scan) and in my system this is 1KB. The nsrnt.dat is 256KB, neither of which I would want ccleaner playing with.
I have MBAM but there is no check against that option, I can't recall is this option was there before and I unchecked it for the same reasoning, I don't want ccleaner playing with any security based application.
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I unchecked the Avast5 option in the Applications section right away, whilst it shouldn't be able to delete protected files, I can't see it needing to delete any avast files. The deletion of the usrntdat.log (not usntr.log) would be pretty pointless (would slow subsequent scan) and in my system this is 1KB. The nsrnt.dat is 256KB, neither of which I would want ccleaner playing with.
I have MBAM but there is no check against that option, I can't recall is this option was there before and I unchecked it for the same reasoning, I don't want ccleaner playing with any security based application.
No malwarebytes wasn't there before, ccleaner has alway's cleaned defender well so there just adding some popular av's and scanner's now and i find it did well and hasn't harmed anything, i did an update and tried a reboot and firewall settings have not been touched but it deleted 28meg of un'needed old file's so im happy. Oh and my full scan just finished at 17mins which is what it is usually.
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They are adding them in what they are calling Utilities , which at the very least is a major misclassification and would lull people into thinking there is no downside.
You didn't say what these files were - I don't know how you managed to accrue 28MB of old avast files as there is a housekeeping routine to keep the major logs down to a workable size, whist retaining enough information should it be required for debugging, etc.
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They are adding them in what they are calling Utilities , which at the very least is a major misclassification and would lull people into thinking there is no downside.
You didn't say what these files were - I don't know how you managed to accrue 28MB of old avast files as there is a housekeeping routine to keep the major logs down to a workable size, whist retaining enough information should it be required for debugging, etc.
They are setup.logs and usntr.logs
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Can confirm that it did reset my update timing back to 240 min and my virus chest size was reset also so iv turned it off now anyway, no harm done and i like to experiment and now i know what it does.
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Posters above refer to CCleaner 2.36 deleting files usrntdat.log and usntr.log.
First of all, I could not find file usrntdat.log in my machine, only usntr.log.
And, second, CCleaner 2.36 did not delete usntr.log, with Avast! Antivirus 5 "utility" checked.
As a side note, I remark that the transient cache is not working correctly here (both caches checked). Files keep being scanned repeatedly, even after two subsequent uses only seconds apart. For large files, this is quite a nuisance! Might the absence of the file usrntdat.log have anything to do with this problem?
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Posters above refer to CCleaner 2.36 deleting files usrntdat.log and usntr.log.
First of all, I could not find file usrntdat.log in my machine, only usntr.log.
And, second, CCleaner 2.36 did not delete usntr.log, with Avast! Antivirus 5 "utility" checked.
As a side note, I remark that the transient cache is not working correctly here (both caches checked). Files keep being scanned repeatedly, even after two subsequent uses only seconds apart. For large files, this is quite a nuisance! Might the absence of the file usrntdat.log have anything to do with this problem?
No it didn't delet the log file it just cleaned it, just tried another scan now and it completed in 11 min's. I only have one option ticked under persistant cache.Transient cache is ticked also.
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well as far as I know this is just a log file, meant to refer to to get information, but in no case used by Avast to operate anything. It just contains the persistence cache log, therefor is seen by CCleaner as directly relating the content of your hard disk. Deleting it won't change the behavior of anything, won't reset anything...hey, it's not a setting file (aka *.ini), and again, it's the only log file that's not protected by the self defense module explaining how CCleaner can delete it. The persistence cache files themselves won't be affected obviously. As to the 28 MB size, yes, the longer it's been used, the bigger it becomes. Same here on my system.
ps: now I'm ready to hear from an Avast dev if this file has any other impact, I can be wrong of course.
edit: hmm David, the usntrdat.log doesn't exist ;D >>> you might have been thinking about the actual persistence cache dat files. Noone has ever said that those would get deleted :D ...which would indeed be completely stupid.
edit: just seeing now as expected in the selfdef.log file that access was denied to the other log files.
edit: other log files get actually deleted (not all, two are protected), seeing it now. I most likely deleted them in a previous run of CCleaner without looking at the result pane, and as they got re-created, they're targeted too >>> screen shot.
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I don't want ccleaner playing with any security based application.
Exactly !
Greetz, Red.
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it doesn't play with anything, it just deletes logs if you want to. Just for some reason Avast is checked by default, and that's a mistake.
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I ran a Scan with CCleaner 2.36 a while ago and NOTHING, not a single Byte of avast was tagged for removal.
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It's a shame that avast does not do housekeeping by itself. A shame!
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I just did a full scan with Avast 5 after using Ccleaner and nothing changed...
I took 10 minutes to scan my entire sistem, see picture attached...
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I just did a full scan with Avast 5 after using Ccleaner and nothing changed...
I took 10 minutes to scan my entire sistem, see picture attached...
And what did you expect?
Only logs of avast are tried to be deleted... and the self-defense module will block some CCleaner actions... ::)
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The largest log it clears is aswAr 1.log which is the one that deleted 28meg off my machine last night, just ran another scan and there is a further 17meg to be cleaned from the same log file but i think i'll leave it.
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The aswAr1.log in my C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Alwil Software\Avast5\log folder is only 1,856KB. So I don't understand how yours keeps getting so large as it should be overwritten each time the anti-rootkit scan is done. You must have masses of data on your system ?
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The aswAr1.log in my C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Alwil Software\Avast5\log folder is only 1,856KB. So I don't understand how yours keeps getting so large as it should be overwritten each time the anti-rootkit scan is done. You must have masses of data on your system ?
Only got 366meg in add remove program's and every thing else is kept on external hard drive, just scanned with ccleaner then and it shows another 17000KB in the aswAR1.log, everything runs good and fast so it must be the normal size for my machine.
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Yes as the anti-rootkit does check a lot of files, though it is surprisingly quick at it, mine is normally very quick, 27 seconds for shed load of files scanned.
My on-demand Full System scan only does the Rootkits (quick scan) so I guess if a) your system has more data, b) or you are doing a custom scan where you elect for a Rootkits (full scan). Either of these may mean more data is being scanned.
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Iv got mine set to the standard full scan which is, All harddiscs,Rootkits(quick scan),Auto-start programs and modules loaded into memory, and pups turned on.
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I have two computers, one with Vista and the other with XP SP3. On the XP system I'm experiencing the same thing as Chim mentioned above. When I run an analysis with CCleaner, no avast! files at all are tagged for deletion. I know they're there because I located them in AppData folder. And if I add the files manually with CCleaner's Include it adds them, it just doesn't add them automatically when an analysis is performed. This doesn't happen with the Vista, it seems to work as I would expect.
Has anyone with XP experienced the same thing besides Chim and myself? I asked for help in the CCleaner forum a few days ago but haven't been able to get it resolved. Thanks. :)
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It's a shame that avast does not do housekeeping by itself. A shame!
??? avast! does do housekeeping by itself, unless you uncheck the boxes.
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??? avast! does do housekeeping by itself, unless you uncheck the boxes.
No, it does not... It limits the logs only.
Dumps (a lot of Mb), setup.log, etc. are kept into avast folders.
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Here is a screen shot of the Avast files Ccleaner wants to delete on the box in my sig. Anyone know what the .ori file is for?
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??? avast! does do housekeeping by itself, unless you uncheck the boxes.
No, it does not... It limits the logs only.
Dumps (a lot of Mb), setup.log, etc. are kept into avast folders.
Oh those logs. I'd forgotten about them. :-[
Mind you, 'setup.log' is only 2.3MB since January. It's not exactly crowding out my hard disk.
Scan logs are deleted though.
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I can confirm that CCleaner deletes no Avast! files in XP. Probably because it's set to look for them where they're found in Vista and W7. The path is different for XP.
The aswAr1.log in my C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Alwil Software\Avast5\log folder is only 1,856KB
Mine is 2,529kb
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I too can firm that in XP it doesn't have the right location/path to look for avast files as it doesn't report any files despite there being some (see image). Personally these logs for the most part are useful to the user for historical info about scans and resident shield detections, etc.
With the exception of the setup and aswar1 logs (and possibly usntr.log) the others are very small. and there is nothing to stop the user deletion of aswar1.log as it isn't protected (or the other logs) and would be recreated when an anti-rootkit scan is done (or activity in the other logging areas).
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Thanks Dch48 and DavidR. At least I know it's not just my system. I thought for awhile there I might be going crazy. :D
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You're welcome.
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Thanks Dch48 and DavidR. At least I know it's not just my system. I thought for awhile there I might be going crazy. :D
You are not crazy as the path they are checking in XP is not set %ProgramData in:
FileKey1=%ProgramData%\Alwil Software\Avast5\report|avast
In XP go to Start then Run... then enter cmd then set to see the Environment variables and %ProgramData% does not exist. ;)
You could go to PROFILE then Modify Profile then update your Signature: with information like my signature and DavidR has as this helps the helpers offer pertinent advice.