Avast WEBforum
Other => General Topics => Topic started by: a61_a61 on December 21, 2004, 01:08:09 PM
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Trying out the new skin and noticed something never seen before.
Why does the Skin show that the "Resident Protection" is set on High? The only thing that's turned on in aVast is the "Network Shield", I have no need for the other items to be turned on.
Also what is the #1 mean? When the mouse is on the #1 when scanning the mouse turns into the hand cursor, when not running the cursor is a pointer.
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I have no need for the other items to be turned on.
Not even the standard shield? If so, what the heck are you doing with Avast anyway then?
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Standard Shield MUST be installed and enabled. All other providers are optional. There is also no difference between Normal/High for Network Shield. Slider is there because all prviders have it.
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For about 7 years I never used any antivirus software to scan e-mails from my accounts. My main account over these years has been from different ISP's. Only friends have had my e-mail address, and I've never had a virus sent to me by a friend in all this time (9 years.) Using a DSL account for over 2 years now and love it. I had only been using AV software to scan files I downloaded, and never downloaded one that had a virus in it yet.
The second e-mail account is from my web site hosting company.
http://www.your-site.com/ (http://www.your-site.com/)
In the past I would get some viruses sent to me from this a account, if they had a suspicious attachment, which I would just delete it and never open.
I started to use Avast to scan the accounts and it would find viruses sent to me through my web site account only. But even if I didn't use Avast I wouldn't open those e-mails...just delete them.
Now my web site hosting company for the past few months uses a "Graylist". Since they started using it my mail from them is pretty darn clean from Spam and I haven't had any e-mails sent to me from this account that had any suspicious attachments at all.
Here's where I'm at now in my thinking about turning off Avast scanning e-mails.
1. I get a lot of emails that can be large in my main account- photos, mp3's, PDF's, etc. When Avast scans these it takes much longer to receive the e-mails than I would like, and I just haven't had any viruses sent to me in the past from my friends. Even if one of them did send a suspicious attachment I wouldn't open it.
2. Since my web hosting company seems to be filtering out any e-mails that have suspicious attachments, why would I need those scanned? All suspicious attachments are blocked by Outlook Express, Security is set on "Restricted Zone, and "Read in Plain Text" is set so can't see how I could get in trouble by a malicious e-mail. I wouldn't open any attachments from someone I don't know if they did send one.
When ever I did have any AV software on my PC the "Resident Scanner" has always been turned off, even with Avast which I now use the "Standard Shield" is turned off, I can't see a need for it. Over the years I would do a system scan once in a while and never had a single virus found. Avast did find one Trojan I had while testing a software download, but it was also picked up by my firewall. (restored PC with a backup image, takes under 5 minutes)
They only thing I have running in Avast now is the "Network Shield", but I don't even know if I need it running, I do have both a hardware and software firewall running.
I think most people pick up a virus through e-mail, but because I think the chances are very slim that could happen to me the scanning is turned off so large e-mails download faster. I don't see why the "Standard Shield" needs to scan my program files everytime I use them.
I think the average PC user should always have a AV program running for they seem to want to open anything sent to them by e-mail, especially if their AV program doesn't detect a virus in the attachment they seem to think it's safe to open.
I recommend to all my friends to get Avast, and at our last computer club meeting we installed Avast on the club PC's. Everyone was impressed with it and I know 6 people switched over to Avast since then. I'm sure some of the others will too!
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Someday social engineering WILL fool you (even exploit is enough). I also consider myself as a safe user(i know lots about viruses and stuff) and i still prefer running some form of Real-Time scan. Better safe than sorry.
I'm on GMail and they also filter loads of spam and viral attachements.
But sometimes you can encounter virus just while browsing through harmless looking webpage. I have seen this and you cannot even notice this unless you're running some form of resident AV.
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I just haven't had any viruses sent to me in the past from my friends
That doesn't mean their systems can't get infected and send you a infected mail without them noticing it.
And malware isn't always spread through an attachment. It can also be in the mail itself if it is a html message. I've also seen malware spreading through the normally hidden parts of email.
When Avast scans these it takes much longer to receive the e-mails than I would like
Better a bit slower and safe than sorry later I would say.
Everyone was impressed with it and I know 6 people switched over to Avast since then. I'm sure some of the others will too!
That is always nice to hear. I hope they like Avast. I also hope you told them to spend some time to make theirselfs familiar with Avast and the settings it is offering the user. This can prevent a lot of unneeded problems/questions. Perhaps telling at the club about this forum will impres them even more ;D
I don't see why the "Standard Shield" needs to scan my program files everytime I use them.
If you think a application is of no risk to you, you can add it to Avast's exclusion list. Avast won't scan it that way, but still will scan all others that need to be scanned.
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Normal Sensitivity without scan on create/modify shouldn't produce any overhead. Try it and if you won't notice any difference(compared to no Standard Shield),use it.
Its not as sensitive as High mode,but in general it should detect everything at execution point.
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Hi Eddy,
I do read all e-mails in plain text, so no chance of a script being run, also scripting turned off. The files sent to me are considered safe files, photos they have taken, MP3's, PDF's, RTF's, etc. Some other attachment I may get I save it then scan it.
My c: drive is kept small (under 3 gig's) so I can image it in about 12 minutes while I take a shower. I do this a few times per week, and can restore back to any time over a year. I restore often because I like to try programs out. I do scan my PC once in a while but always comes up clean all the time.
If I do have a PC problem that seems new I just restore to a time when I didn't have that problem....after that reinstall any new app's and redo changes I made since the restore.
I would like to exclude all program files from being scanned, but then I still think all the Windows files are scanned when they are called on.
RejZoR,
Just turned on "Normal" for "Standard Shield" and it's not bad...just a tad slower to open a program.
What about the two questions I asked about in the beginning? ;D
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Network Shield is also a resident provider. It doesn't matter if its set to Normal or High its always doing the same job.
Second thing is just a graphic representation of On-Demand module status (busy hand if scan is running,pointer if normal and so on...)
If you need more details,just ask :)
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OK, I reset the Network shield to Normal as well as the Standard Shield. ;D
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I have read in the MS news groups that people using Norton AV to Turn off e-mail scanning because they would still be protected. Would that hold true with Avast?
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Basicly it is true. See it this way. Email is stored in a file (or multiple files) on your system, if that file is scanned, it means your email is scanned.
But I must add that this is a very simplified explantion. Email scanners do provide more security and in more ways.
And those NAV user should turn off NAV completly (remove it) and start using Avast ;D ;D ;D
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Well this is true for all antiviruses. The end detector is always Standard Shield. However Internet mail provider offers special mail heuristics to detect unknown viruses or exploits which are not present in Standard Shield.
So if you use only webbased mail like Hotmail or GMail you need only Standard Shield (+Network Shield) and you're fine (i have the same).
Internet Mail provider also checks inside compressed archives,while Standard Shield doesn't.
Norton uses some funny redirection methods so they probably disable mail scanning because of that.
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That would totally depend on the settings of Standard Shield (and as you have said you aren't using it). It also seems a poor idea, because it would reduce protection in depth to a last line of defence option.
The mail protection is the first line of defence with standard shield a secondary line of defence with 'scan of created/modified' files and a last line of defence 'scan on open.' This however, depends on having the sensitivity set to 'High' in standard shield.
Like all things in life there are compromises to be made protection V convenience/overhead, but with a reasonable system this overhead is minimal. My lowly machine (see sig) has a barely negligible effect.
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My desktop is 5 years old. XP Pro SP2,AMD 700 mhz, 384 mb ram, ATI card 128mb. All programs run fine Dreamweaver MX and Fireworks MX, MS Office 2000, Techsmith programs, many other programs, not one problem. My PC seems to run programs faster than some of the newer PC's that my friends have. But I did do some tweaking to mine. I may replace my desktop next year even though it works perfect now. From a cold boot to desktop 28 seconds, IE/OE opens in a second, Word opens 4 seconds, Dreamweaver 5 seconds, Firefox 6 seconds that's with Avast set on "Standard Shield..Normal". So most programs will open from 1 to 6 or 7 seconds.
Because I make backups often, if I ever did get a virus I would just restore the PC with an image instead of having Avast put it in the chest. Don't get me wrong here I love Avast and use it, just wouldn't want some virus I may happen to get stored in the chest when I can restore my PC in less than 5 minutes.
Some of the programs on my desktop are:
Ad-Aware SE Personal
Adobe Acrobat 5.0
AIDA32 v3.40
AllFive 2000
AMD AGP Driver
ATI Control Panel
ATI Display Driver
Ava Find Professional
avast! Antivirus
BigFix
Buttonmania
Camtasia Effects
Camtasia Studio 2
CCleaner
CDex extraction audio
CopyURL
DeKnop
DubIt
e-Sword
FileZilla
Flash and Pics Control
Flash Saving Plugin
GiPo@MoveOnBoot 1.9
HandyBits Voice Mail
HijackThis 1.99.0
HindSite
Image for Windows
InCtrl5
IrfanView
J2SE Runtime Environment
Jasc Paint Shop Pro 9.01
K9
Karen's Directory Printer
Logitech MouseWare 9.79
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX
Macromedia Extension Manager
Macromedia Fireworks MX 6
Macromedia Shockwave Player
Microsoft Data Access Components
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 Web Accessories
Microsoft Office XP Professional with FrontPage
Microsoft Plus! Digital Media Edition
Mozilla Firefox
Mr. Matt
Nero 6
Ninotech Path Copy 4.0
NoteTab Pro
Paint Shop Pro 7
PartitionMagic 8
PerfectDisk 6
PopTray 3.10
PowerDVD
PySol version 4.60
QuickTime Alternative 1.33
Real Alternative 1.23 1.23
Registry Detective
RegScrubXP 3.25
SinkSub Pro
SnagIt 6
SnagIt 7
Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.3
SpywareBlaster v3.2
SWF Opener
tinySpell 1.1
Tweakui Powertoy for Windows XP
ViceVersa Pro 1.3.1
Windows Media Encoder 9 Series
Windows Media Format Runtime
Windows Media Player 10
Windows Movie Maker 2.0
ZipGenius
ZoneAlarm
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If you play around BIOS a bit,you should squeeze some extra horsepowers from your Athlon :) Other components are fine for 2D usage (programs and not games).
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I have a correction to make. It was a while ago that I timed the start up and it was 27 sec's. Never paid much attention to it since then. I just did a time sheck on it and now it boots in 49 sec's , I don't think that's too bad. It could be SP2 slowed it down some. I may try out the Startup Delay program to see how it works out.
The applications still load as fast as they did before though. The only tweaking I did to XP was to turn off some of the services that I don't need. Used the info from "Black Vipers" site.
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Major boot slowdown is a network card (LAN card) without addressed local IPs and/or DNS IPs. When you enter those your boot can get shorter for about 30 or even 60 seconds
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Major boot slowdown is a network card (LAN card) without addressed local IPs and/or DNS IPs. When you enter those your boot can get shorter for about 30 or even 60 seconds
What do you mean...?
If we have a network card (on-board LAN for instance) and it has a dynamica address, could it be the 'bad guy' on booting and shutting down?
And if we have static IP, will it help?
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No,your final connection IP doesn't make any difference.
Local IPs are important.
Oh and this is just for Windows 2000/XP.
On system boot,Windows initialize LAN card so it gets appropriate IPs to work. Initialization can take pretty long (even up to 60seconds).
If you enter your local IPs into LAN card settings,Windows won't have to initialize itb and boot will be shorter.
Open Network Connections,rightclick on your LAN card and select Properties.
Select TCP/IP protocol and Properties.
Set local IP adreess to 192.168.0.1 (or appropriate if you have your own local network)
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
You can also enter DNS IPs if you run DSL connection directly.
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Set local IP adreess to 192.168.0.1 (or appropriate if you have your own local network)
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
You can also enter DNS IPs if you run DSL connection directly.
I use this... Maybe is why my boot is faster than others...
Thanks RejZor for the explanation ;)
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Trying out the new skin and noticed something never seen before.
Why does the Skin show that the "Resident Protection" is set on High? The only thing that's turned on in aVast is the "Network Shield", I have no need for the other items to be turned on.
Actually, skin doesn't show anything. Skin is just skin as it says in the name. What you see inside display panel, it doesn't have to do anything with skin anymore. Those information are controled by the avast! code. What Alwil did, and why it's set on High even if you enable only one provider, I have no clue. You have to ask them... ;)
Also what is the #1 mean? When the mouse is on the #1 when scanning the mouse turns into the hand cursor, when not running the cursor is a pointer.
#1 means nothing. It's just static part of the skin (bitmap), and has no function at all. I speciafically and carefully made that area in blue halftones, to match rest of the static skin area... in other words, it should be very obvious that little square with number 1 inside, has no function at all... it looks like permanently disabled. If you take a look at "active" buttons, you'll spot that those icons are very colourful and "alive". Skin is called SZC-KDE. That also shows that I tried to make one skin Linux-style-looking. Everyone who ever tried Linux KDE, would recognize that little window. In KDE, it shows that first screen area is activated. On this skin, it's just decoration.
Hand cursor ? Personaly, I never saw that hand cursor, because I'm sure I made everything to disable that hand cursor in all my skins, especially in this latest one... anyway, area that starts from where the little square with #1 is, all the way to button HELP, is dragging area. It allows you to dragg avast! window (skin) around your desktop...
Hope this cleared it...