Avast phoning home to Google?

[kenmaat]

Hi.
  When I first go online I often see unexpected activity in my 'net meter' and my firewall indicates ashweb.exe is dialogging with IP address 216.239.53.91, which whois indicates is Google in Missoula, Montana.
  It only happens once and can last for a minute or so. If I disconnect and reconnect it doesn't happen the second time.
  Not only is this a pain with my stone age dial up access (24 kbps), but I am also concerned about just what is going on when I don't know what it is or why.
  Any info will be appreciated. Thanks.

[igor]

ashWebSv.exe is the Web Shield "proxy" - so, it doesn't talk to any site just by itself, it catches the connections from other applications and forwards them to the requested target (so that it can scan the transferred data for viruses).
So, I guess you can stop the Web Shield provider for a while and check what is the real application making these requests.

[kenmaat]

ashWebSv.exe is the Web Shield "proxy" - so, it doesn't talk to any site just by itself, it catches the connections from other applications and forwards them to the requested target (so that it can scan the transferred data for viruses).
So, I guess you can stop the Web Shield provider for a while and check what is the real application making these requests.

Thank you for that info! And so quick!
  Thinking it was Avast, I failed to mention that my Firefox 2001 is also reported as active during the same period. So .. I wonder, do you have any idea why Firefox is phoning Google?
  If so, thanks. If not, understood. Thanks again!

[DavidR]

Do you have the google toolbar or any other google products, they could be trying to connect for updates, etc.

[Glass]

Yes, firefox communicates with sb.google.com for some reason. I saw some talk among firefox developers' forum that it was to get some lists information for anti-phishing or something every 4 hours, and i think they are working to rid this off too. But need to research this.

Also firefox talks to bbc rss too.

[DavidR]

You can disable that or choose to download a list, Tools, Options, Security, Tell me if the site I'm visiting is a suspected forgery. For the potential protection it gives, the inconvenience of it checking with google is minor. You should also have aggreed to the terms for its use.

Only if you have subscribed to an RSS service are there any in your live bookmarks, check the Tools, Options, Feeds.

[kenmaat]

Wow! Thanks to all of you.
Great info and all in such quick time.
It looks like it is Firefox downloading the suspected forgery list. I guess I must have overlooked that in installing 2.0.  At least now I know what it is.
Again, thanks!

[DavidR]

No problem, glad we could help.

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