multiple pop & benchmarking

[quinone]

Hi all,

new user here: installed avast! today (after two years of avg) because of positive remarks towards it on the mozilla.org forum. Two questions though:

1: I have two different smtp servers and four different pop servers. In the mail protection wizard, I can only specify *one* pop and *one* smtp server that avast! will check on. I already checked one other pop account, and yes, avast didn't saw any virus in a virus-containing email. The account - appearantly - isn't checked, because it isn't specified in MPW. I already read (through the search function of this forum) that many people have multiple pop&smtp servers running through avast!, but I can't figure out how Anyone, anywhere?

2: AVG was a charming piece of coding because of a: low mem&cpu usage and b: was very passive (did run, but almost unnoticed). I already ticked 'constant connection to internet' so that it stops pinging (I think that's what the second blue icon in the systray was about), but I still doubt about the actual mem, cpu and inet usage. Especially the memory usage is somewhat bizarre (total amount of 22 mb). Can someone give something of a comparison between AVG and avast! Even better: why should I use Avast! instead of AVG? I'm using it now because it's the only free virus scanner that integrates with Thunderbird, but I still prefer modesty above safety (I don't open any attachements of anyone if I suspect anything, and AVG always noticed the files that were contained if I tried to open them from the place where I saved them).

Summary: convince me of why I have installed Avast! I know it's arrogant, but I need to be convinced that I'm using the most proper tool for the task that it has to do. Otherwise I'll keep doubting all the time, and I want to be sure that what I use for antivirus is the best there is for my situation.

Kind regards,
Inge

[Lisandro]

1: I have two different smtp servers and four different pop servers. In the mail protection wizard, I can only specify *one* pop and *one* smtp server that avast! will check on. I already checked one other pop account, and yes, avast didn't saw any virus in a virus-containing email. The account - appearantly - isn't checked, because it isn't specified in MPW. I already read (through the search function of this forum) that many people have multiple pop&smtp servers running through avast!, but I can't figure out how Anyone, anywhere?

Just run the MPW you will be able to choose 'all' accounts (even those that will be created in the future...). Do not mess the 'standard' pop/smtp server with all your emails accounts. You'll be protected in all of them. I have almost 10 with different smtp and pop servers, all protected by avast.

2: AVG was a charming piece of coding because of a: low mem&cpu usage and b: was very passive (did run, but almost unnoticed). I already ticked 'constant connection to internet' so that it stops pinging (I think that's what the second blue icon in the systray was about), but I still doubt about the actual mem, cpu and inet usage. Especially the memory usage is somewhat bizarre (total amount of 22 mb). Can someone give something of a comparison between AVG and avast! Even better: why should I use Avast! instead of AVG? I'm using it now because it's the only free virus scanner that integrates with Thunderbird, but I still prefer modesty above safety (I don't open any attachements of anyone if I suspect anything, and AVG always noticed the files that were contained if I tried to open them from the place where I saved them).

Summary: convince me of why I have installed Avast! I know it's arrogant, but I need to be convinced that I'm using the most proper tool for the task that it has to do. Otherwise I'll keep doubting all the time, and I want to be sure that what I use for antivirus is the best there is for my situation.

Kind regards,
Inge

Stop doubting now  
You have the best av, the best forum, the best protection, the best configuration... Let's talk seriously ...

About the second icon (the 'i' ball), it's the VRDB (a database for recovery in case of infection...).  

[RejZoR]

Ok enter info into Mozilla Mail client like this for each accaount:

POP: localhost
User: your_username#pop.something.com
Pass: your_password

SMTP: localhost
User: your_username#smtp.something.com
Pass: your_password

Hm about second question...
I've tested many antivirus programs and only three (3) have qualified to be easy to use and efficient.
BitDefender,Pc-cillin 2004 and ofcourse Avast!.
Avast! can be confugured to work as YOU want not how developers want it,small and regular updates,many options on how to get rid of a viruses,and most important outstanding tech support (just try to ask something at Symantec ).
Oh and i shouldn't forget awesome skins

[quinone]

Ok enter info into Mozilla Mail client like this for each accaount:

POP: localhost
User: your_username#pop.something.com
Pass: your_password

SMTP: localhost
User: your_username#smtp.something.com
Pass: your_password

Do you mean to say that I should change the current pop and smtp info (for instance: pop.tiscali.nl) into 'localhost', and that the specific pop and smptp server that should be used is entered in the user screen? I don't have any experience with a virus scanner 'around' my email client, so maybe this is just plain normal stuff, but I'm kind of unaware about it.

Hm about second question...
I've tested many antivirus programs and only three (3) have qualified to be easy to use and efficient.
BitDefender,Pc-cillin 2004 and ofcourse Avast!.
Avast! can be confugured to work as YOU want not how developers want it,small and regular updates,many options on how to get rid of a viruses,and most important outstanding tech support (just try to ask something at Symantec ).
Oh and i shouldn't forget awesome skins

Let's put it another way: on my current amd xp palomino 2000+ with 512 mb ddr on a a7s333 with win2kpro + sp4, will it bring performance down much? Because I use this rig for making music, as little resources as possible should be taken by backgrond software.

Inge

[RejZoR]

Lets make it so

POP: localhost
User: quinone#pop.tiscali.nl
Pass: your_password

SMTP: localhost
User: quinone#smtp.tiscali.nl
Pass: your_password

Avast! has some unique features to scan as fast as possible and to use as low resources as possible. I don't see the difference on my system (check my signature) and i have everything set to High sensitivity.

[quinone]

So far so good  

Will report later if anything unusual would strike me. Thank you for the wicked-fast response!

Inge

[quinone]

last question concerning email scanning: everything works now (it even detects viruses), but email scanning annoys me because of two reasons:

1: the extra temporal icon in my systray
2: the *huge* yellow/red layer that pops up whenever a virus is encountered.

Can these two be solved? I hate layers that bounce through my screen, and the extra systray icon tends to ask attention from the corner of my eye.

Just interested

Inge

[RejZoR]

Extra temporal icon? Which one do you mean? The one with letter "i" ? Or the one which shows only when you get new mail?

The second is quiet obvious,because it warns you that a virus was detected. If you really really hate it,than lets wait for someone from Alwil (i don't have an idea where to turn it off)

[quinone]

Extra temporal icon? Which one do you mean? The one with letter "i" ? Or the one which shows only when you get new mail?

The one which shows only when I get new mail. I hate moving things, especially in my systray, and *especially* if I can't decide myself wether to turn it of or on.

The second is quiet obvious,because it warns you that a virus was detected. If you really really hate it,than lets wait for someone from Alwil (i don't have an idea where to turn it off)

I understand the importance of letting me know that a virus has been detected, but it looks like the bloody circus has entered town whenever a virus pops in (and with getting the email of a quite often visited site and a quite often used domain for email addresses, I get *a lot* of viruses).

Inge

ps: before dear beloved writers or colleagues of Avast! start thinking that I'm a perpetual annoying little bastard: yes and no. Yes, because I like to get the best out of the software I use, and no, because in the end I'm just a satisfied customer who seeks to find as much joy and identity in his virusscanner as he wishes.
ps2: congratulations so far for this forum. Your response time is even bigger than down at mozilla & sudhian. Thumbs!

[Vlk]

Hey quinone, no problem, we sort of anticipated that there'll be such "annoying little bastards" among our users

To turn off the "layer", add the following to the [AAVM] section of <avast>\data\avast4.ini:

ShowVirusTag=0

Tu turn off the Internet Mail tray icon when receiving mail, add the following to the [MailScanner] section of <avast>\data\avast4.ini:

ShowTrayIcon=0


A reboot may be required for the changes to become effective.

Hope this helps,
Vlk

[RejZoR]

LOL avast4.ini is like a tresure. There is so many extra commands that we don't know about

Oh you can enable/disable that mail icon in Mail Protection Wizard too.

[quinone]

Thanks for both answers. I've already disabled the icon in the mail preferences, and I am still thinking about editing the avast4.ini for disabling the layer. The problem of disabling that one is that I won't have any clue left of wether or not an email is infected.

The 'on-access protection control' -> 'internet mail' -> 'customize' gives the possibility for a 'silent mode', in which (in heuristics) it could simply tag infected emails in their subject (after which I could decide myself to open them or not). In the tab 'advanced', I've enabled 'silent mode' (with 'general answer -> yes', whatever that may be), and in 'heuristics', I've enabled 'silent mode -> mark it in subject field'. These are the only settings I could think of to enable the silent mode (I was hoping that silent would imply no yellow layer), and how it would simply add a tag to infected emails. Or is silent mode something else?

Questions questions questions...be afraid

Inge

[Vlk]

In short, Silent mode means: no questions. I.e., it should've also been called unattended mode as it is guaranteed that no user response will be required no matter how tough the situation is.

This doesn't mean that no stuff will be drawn on the screen, though...

I hope that explains it a bit.
Vlk

[RejZoR]

Or make these layers transparent,so they won't be so disturbing.

Add TagOpacity under AAVM section,like this:

[AAVM]
TagOpacity=XX

XX means the level of transparency.
100 is fully visible and 0 is fully transparent.

[Vlk]

0 is fully transparent

...i.e. completely invisible, I should add.