Avast UI opens after scheduled scan

[bob3160]

1 too many scans.
2 schedule the screensaver scan when you're not using the computer.
Should work fine unless you never sleep.

[DavidR]

With a resident on-access antivirus like avast, the need for frequent on-demand scans is much depreciated. For the most part the on-demand scan is going to be scanning files that would be otherwise be dormant or inert. If they were active files then the on-access file system shield would be scanning them before being created, modified, opened or executed.

I previously had avast set to do a scheduled weekly Quick scan, set at a time and day that I know the computer will be on and not really active. If for some reason my system wasn't on, no big deal I will catch up on the next scheduled scan.

Now however, I have stopped those scans, this really is a throw back to old habits from old AVs.

[REDACTED]

1 too many scans.
2 schedule the screensaver scan when you're not using the computer.
Should work fine unless you never sleep.

But when I'm not using the computer, it is switched off. I don't like wasting electricity by leaving computers on doing nothing - have you seen the cost of energy bills in the UK? 

That's why the scan is scheduled for when I know I will be using the computer. It has no discernible impact on performance running in the background doing it's thing. The only issue I have is that the silly UI pops up now when it's done.

It boils down to the fact I paid £39.99 for a piece of software because that piece of software was doing what I wanted it to do. I could have run a Quick Scan every hour, if I wanted. Now it's doing something that's annoying to me and is, in my view, largely unnecessary. The answer shouldn't be for me to modify my behaviour to cater to the change in the software's behaviour because when I licenced it, it wasn't behaving in this manner. The answer should be for Avast to change the behaviour of the software back to how it originally was or if there is some advantage to what is doing now to make that optional.

Because, to be honest, even if others think that running a Quick Scan once a day is excessive, there's plenty of other options on the market that will let me do just that without popping up it's UI every time it's done. One of the reasons I perform a Quick Scan every day, and the primary reason I switched to Avast, is because another AV provider which had resident, real-time scanning and all that let nasties get onto my system four times in two weeks. I'd rather err on the side of caution than spend hours fixing such a mess.

[REDACTED]

1 too many scans.
2 schedule the screensaver scan when you're not using the computer.
Should work fine unless you never sleep.

1. You're saying you prefer a less secure computing environment.  That may not be good enough for others.

2. Avast offers a scheduled scan that runs whether the user is logged-in or not, and can be set to be more thorough than the on-access shields.  There's no reason not to use it.

3. The UI really shouldn't be popping up when a scan is done.  I have a suspicion this bug will be fixed in the next drop.  Let us wait and see.

-Noel

[bob3160]

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2 schedule the screensaver scan when you're not using the computer.
Should work fine unless you never sleep.<$1alt="" title="" onresizestart="return false;" id="smiley__$2" style="padding: 0 3px 0 3px;" />

1. You're saying you prefer a less secure computing environment.  That may not be good enough for others.

2. Avast offers a scheduled scan that runs whether the user is logged-in or not, and can be set to be more thorough than the on-access shields.  There's no reason not to use it.

3. The UI really shouldn't be popping up when a scan is done.  I have a suspicion this bug will be fixed in the next drop.  Let us wait and see.

-Noel

You seem to be of the impression that excessive scans will make your system more secure than my current way of scanning my system.
I've only used avast! Free for the past 10 years and no scan has ever come up with something that could have been prevented by doing these daily scans.
I do know that doing daily scans is a great way to shorten the life of you hard drive.
I also do regular weekly image backups. Which is more important than daily weekly or monthly scans.
When your hardware fails or your system become infected and can't be rescued, all the scans in the world
wouldn't help you.
Having a reliable way of restoring your system however will.
You need both, prevention and backup.
 

[REDACTED]

1 too many scans.<$1alt="" title="" onresizestart="return false;" id="smiley__$2" style="padding: 0 3px 0 3px;" />
2 schedule the screensaver scan when you're not using the computer.
Should work fine unless you never sleep.<$1alt="" title="" onresizestart="return false;" id="smiley__$2" style="padding: 0 3px 0 3px;" />

1. You're saying you prefer a less secure computing environment.  That may not be good enough for others.

2. Avast offers a scheduled scan that runs whether the user is logged-in or not, and can be set to be more thorough than the on-access shields.  There's no reason not to use it.

3. The UI really shouldn't be popping up when a scan is done.  I have a suspicion this bug will be fixed in the next drop.  Let us wait and see.

-Noel

You seem to be of the impression that excessive scans will make your system more secure than my current way of scanning my system.
I've only used avast! Free for the past 10 years and no scan has ever come up with something that could have been prevented by doing these daily scans.
I do know that doing daily scans is a great way to shorten the life of you hard drive.
I also do regular weekly image backups. Which is more important than daily weekly or monthly scans.
When your hardware fails or your system become infected and can't be rescued, all the scans in the world
wouldn't help you.
Having a reliable way of restoring your system however will.
You need both, prevention and backup.

Can you provide a link to your claim that scanning reduces the lifespan of a HDD?

I've seen many people state that frequent virus scans have no such ill-effects so I'd be interested to see evidence to the contrary.

As for backup, I do have that. I have a 2x 4Tb NAS in a Raid 1 array, coupled with a 3Tb Seagate Central NAS that has extra backups of important files in addition to cloud storage via DropBox, OneDrive and Google Drive. I don't bother imaging the entire drive(s) though, only backup files I don't want to lose because if the system needs restoring, or a hard drive fails, I'd rather just perform a fresh install.

[REDACTED]

Count me among the group that usually, but not always, now sees the UI pop open at the end of a scheduled "resultless" Quick Scan.

The "Automatically open" box is "Settings/Appearance" is unchecked; the text below it, "The Scan Results windows will only be opened where there are any results to be shown.", is no longer an accurate description.  -JW

[bob3160]

Can you provide a link to your claim that scanning reduces the lifespan of a HDD?

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=84&pgno=3
It may not be the act of scanning but, the temp. increase from doing the excessive scanning certainly has an effect.
The main point is that all of this scanning is not needed.
It doesn't change the fact that the UI should not be opening after the scan completes unless there are errors to report.

[REDACTED]

You seem to be of the impression that excessive scans will make your system more secure than my current way of scanning my system.
I've only used avast! Free for the past 10 years and no scan has ever come up with something that could have been prevented by doing these daily scans.

I do know that doing daily scans is a great way to shorten the life of you hard drive.
I also do regular weekly image backups. Which is more important than daily weekly or monthly scans.

When your hardware fails or your system become infected and can't be rescued, all the scans in the world
wouldn't help you.

Having a reliable way of restoring your system however will.
You need both, prevention and backup.

Oh, well if Bob has never managed to have a scan catch something that got missed by a shield, that cinches it.  It'll never happen. 

And your wisdom regarding computer hardware is a bit "last millennium", Bob.  My array of SSDs is just as happy to read out a few TB as not, without any lifespan shortening.  A scan does not put a wear-inducing load on *my* drives.

Bravo to you for having a weekly backup, I absolutely agree that backup is important - though doing it nightly as I do is even better.   

Bob, with all due respect, you aren't really qualified to say that "all of this scanning is not needed" without preceding the statement with "IMO".

-Noel

[bob3160]

Bob, with all due respect, you aren't really qualified to say that "all of this scanning is not needed" without preceding the statement with "IMO".

What are your qualifications to make that statement ? Amazing 

[REDACTED]

Can you provide a link to your claim that scanning reduces the lifespan of a HDD?

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=84&pgno=3
It may not be the act of scanning but, the temp. increase from doing the excessive scanning certainly has an effect.
The main point is that all of this scanning is not needed.
It doesn't change the fact that the UI should not be opening after the scan completes unless there are errors to report.

Ah, thanks for the information. In my desktop PC I do have fans dedicated to cooling the drives. Laptop doesn't run very hot generally, unless I actually run games on it (very rare).

To be honest, as I say, it's an err on the side of caution thing and it doesn't do any noticeable harm in my mind to let it scan away in the background, nor does the system take a performance hit. I am backed up if the worst happens - but the hours I had to spend putting a previous system right after another AV product (not naming them because I'm not sure of the rules) failed me just makes me think that there's nothing to be lost from the scanning. If it proves fruitless, well, can't say I didn't try

[bob3160]

@ Garrell,
I have often said that part of being safe, is feeling safe. If, doing regular scans make you feel safer,
then continue to do so. I personally see no advantage.
It's also my responsibility to keep my system safe and you need to do the same for your system.
We handle that job in different ways with the exception that we both depend on avast! to get the job done.
If we all did everything in the same way, this would be a very boring world.

[REDACTED]

What are your qualifications to make that statement ? Amazing 

Thank you for asking.  I have a degree in computer engineering and a 37 year career in software engineering, some of it involving security, under my belt.  I have at least as much experience as you with online forums, though not this one, inasmuch as I've been online since there has been an "online" to be on.  I'm a top contributor on a number of them today.

Yes, my qualifications are amazing.   Thank you.   LOL

In all seriousness, I'm only pointing out that you can't know what the requirements of other folks are.  Avast offers the scan and the ability to run it daily.  'Nuff said.

-Noel

[REDACTED]

@ Garrell,
I have often said that part of being safe, is feeling safe. If, doing regular scans make you feel safer,
then continue to do so. I personally see no advantage.
It's also my responsibility to keep my system safe and you need to do the same for your system.
We handle that job in different ways with the exception that we both depend on avast! to get the job done.
If we all did everything in the same way, this would be a very boring world.

Very true, and I can say that since switching to Avast I've had no issues. I know the real-time component has blocked some infections before they happen, and occasionally a scan picks up something minor. I use MBAM to hoover up the PUP's that Avast doesn't look for so all in all my systems feel pretty secure

[REDACTED]

Heard back from Avast Technical Support, and they said development has stated that the opening of the UI after a scheduled scan completes is a bug and will be fixed as soon as possible.