Thank you for your common sense reply, David. I wasn't thinking !!
I am happy to say that Web Shield has finally detected the Eicar text file page. But only after I booted the computer once or twice, each time I shut the Eicar page down before shutting down the computer.
So hurray!! Thanks to all of you I now KNOW that Web Shield is able to detect a threat even when I am casually surfing the Web. It is just as well because the Secunia Software Inspector that Frank told me about I found does not cater to Windows 98 unfortunately.
http://secunia.com/software_inspector/And besides it only checks your computer's software in order to alert you to update it. It does not shield you from malaware like Web Shield does.
Incidentally I love the wonderful ALERT WINDOW that Avast brings up.
I wanted to make a jpg of it so that I could download it with my post to show you all. With my system specs, can you tell me whether I can and if so how ?
On another note, every time I boot up, Avast keeps on popping a green notice at the systray saying that there is an upgrade. Any idea of how I can stop Avast having this pop up each time I boot up ?
Since the 1201 version seems to be geared to tweaking Avas to Windows XP, I do not see the point of upgrading. Would you agree ? Also I am not sure whether the 1201 has a Simple User Interface or not. I do like the Simple User Interface J
trigan