New user of avast!4Home

[metaxa]

I installed avast!4Home yesterday, without any problems. Although the a-icon twinkles now and then to make me feel safe, I have three questions - and I'm not a specialist, so please explain clearly(!)

1. Do I have to make any manual settings or does the standard setup give me optimal protection?

2. When setting up the programme, I inserted "127.0.0.1", as requested, in my mail programme (Outlook Express 6). How do I know if my mails are actually checked?

3. I also looked for updates during the setup, as suggested, but to my surprise there were none. By the way, I have a dial-up connection. How can I be sure that the automatic update is working?

[Vlk]

Hi, and welcome to the gang (uhm, community) of avast users!

1. Do I have to make any manual settings or does the standard setup give me optimal protection?

You should be fine with the default settings. They should ensure that you will not get infected.

2. When setting up the programme, I inserted "127.0.0.1", as requested, in my mail programme (Outlook Express 6). How do I know if my mails are actually checked?

How did you set it up, exactly? Normally you'd set it up using the Mail Protection Wizard (no manual setting, just completing the Wiz).

3. I also looked for updates during the setup, as suggested, but to my surprise there were none. By the way, I have a dial-up connection. How can I be sure that the automatic update is working?

Well since you downloaded and installed it yesterday it's no wonder there are no updates, is it?

The updates should take place automatically. You'll be notified by a blue box in the lower-right corner of the screen whenever an update is installed.

Hope this helps,
Vlk

[metaxa]

Hi Vlk - thanks for your quick reply. I think I did something like this when setting up the post part:

There was a sequence of windows, one of which saying that I should change SMTP/POP3/MAP4 server address to 127.0.0.1. Two windows ahead, the addresses turned up and I put the number in........ wrong?

One more thing: In FAQs there is a question about dial-up connections - that they could or should put a setting into one of the files. Is this a recommendation for all dial-up customers?

[Vlk]

There was a sequence of windows, one of which saying that I should change SMTP/POP3/MAP4 server address to 127.0.0.1. Two windows ahead, the addresses turned up and I put the number in........ wrong?

Wrong... you should've put your real SMTP and POP server names to these boxes. Rerun the Wizard, it can be found in the avast group in the Start Menu.

Anyway, if your mail works, you're probably OK. You can also vefiry that it's working properly by sending an eicar test file (eicar.com) -- see http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm for more info about this file.

One more thing: In FAQs there is a question about dial-up connections - that they could or should put a setting into one of the files. Is this a recommendation for all dial-up customers?

What OS are you using? If it's WinNT/2K/XP you don't have to set up anything (it should work well). If it's Win9x/ME, you could prevent some problems (which may or may not be nonexistent in your configuration) by selecting the appropriate box in the avast settings (the avast4.ini manual setting is now obsolete). Just start avast, go to Settings, Updating (connections) and check the appropriate box.

Vlk