Author Topic: Huge updates?  (Read 4910 times)

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wazzag

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Huge updates?
« on: September 21, 2009, 11:55:04 AM »
Hello everybody

XP SP3 running avast 4.8

I'm getting massive updates, especially from avast.exe

I am on a low(ish) monthly quota plan and since installing Avast have been chewing through my monthly quota (of 600MB) in a week or so

I have installed a monitoring programme and the Avast is chewing all the data

This is a new machine with a clean install of XP

Is this normal?
If so I will have to move to another AV, even though Avast is highly recommended

Offline igor

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Re: Huge updates?
« Reply #1 on: September 21, 2009, 12:33:50 PM »
It is certainly not normal.
Besides, there's no avast.exe file in avast! installation...

Forejt

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Re: Huge updates?
« Reply #2 on: September 21, 2009, 12:49:20 PM »
Did you mean process "avast.setup"?
Please send the file setup.log from avast4\setup folder, preferably compressed to my email.

wazzag

  • Guest
Re: Huge updates?
« Reply #3 on: September 21, 2009, 01:22:38 PM »
Yeah I meant setup

I can't post the log file for a few hours, I'm not at that machine till tomorrow

wazzag

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Re: Huge updates?
« Reply #4 on: September 22, 2009, 04:20:30 AM »
Ziped file sent, thanks for your help Forejt

In the last two weeks this has happened, seems a lot to me

ashwebsv.exe   149mb
ashmaisv.exe      60mb
avast.setup      76mb

Offline DavidR

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Re: Huge updates?
« Reply #5 on: September 22, 2009, 05:18:49 PM »
These are localhost proxies so as such shouldn't contribute to any bandwidth limit.
ashwebsv.exe   149mb
ashmaisv.exe      60mb

Traffic comes into from the internet but is directed to the local host proxy so the content can be scanned before it is sent to either your browser cache or inbox.

All this is done locally so shouldn't contribute to any bandwidth measurement, if the tool you gage your bandwidth also counts this then it is stuffing up.
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Offline Lisandro

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Re: Huge updates?
« Reply #6 on: September 22, 2009, 05:32:27 PM »
Only avast.setup really takes bandwidth like David said. The other are just local scanning. The bandwidth is taken by your browser and mail activity. You can reduce the avast.setup usage if you reduce the update period of avast in its settings.
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wazzag

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Re: Huge updates?
« Reply #7 on: September 23, 2009, 02:08:37 AM »
I have gone for a default install and as I understand Avast checks for updates every four hours (?)

What seems to happen is ashweb scans away merrily all by itself, that is I can have a webpage open and doing nothing, and ahsweb is still scanning away chewing up quota for no apparent reason
I thought ashwebv was part of the update process, hence my topic title

ashmaisv seems about right for the two weeks I have been recording (60mb of emails)

Previous to Avast I managed to stay within my meagre monthly quota most of the time, since installing Avast I use my monthly quota in the first week or so, then my broadband gets slowed/throttled to dial-up speed for the rest of the month (which is a pain in the neck)

This also happened on a previous computer running W98, I installed Avast and my monthly quota started getting used in the first week or so, this prompted me to swap computers to a clean XP machine thinking it would solve my dramas, but same thing is happening

Offline Lisandro

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Re: Huge updates?
« Reply #8 on: September 23, 2009, 02:51:03 AM »
I have gone for a default install and as I understand Avast checks for updates every four hours (?)
avast checks if there is an available connection each 40 seconds.
If there isn't, wait more 40 seconds to check. Checking does not take more than one second and, of course, does not use the Internet band.
If there is a connection, check for an update. If there is not any new file to download, wait 4 hours to start checking again. If there is an available update, start it and install it. Again, wait 4 hours to check the next time.
Some of this settings could be configurated different, I posted the default values of the avast4.ini file. The updates are incremental.

ahsweb is still scanning away chewing up quota for no apparent reason
I thought ashwebv was part of the update process, hence my topic title
WebShield does not start any connection and does not take any quota.
Some program is starting an http traffic and the traffic is being scanned locally by WebShield.
Is Windows being update? Any program running in background?
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YoKenny

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Re: Huge updates?
« Reply #9 on: September 23, 2009, 06:16:45 AM »
I like CurrPorts v1.70 - Monitoring Opened TCP/IP network ports / connections
Quote
Description
CurrPorts is network monitoring software that displays the list of all currently opened TCP/IP and UDP ports on your local computer. For each port in the list, information about the process that opened the port is also displayed, including the process name, full path of the process, version information of the process (product name, file description, and so on), the time that the process was created, and the user that created it.
In addition, CurrPorts allows you to close unwanted TCP connections, kill the process that opened the ports, and save the TCP/UDP ports information to HTML file , XML file, or to tab-delimited text file.
CurrPorts also automatically mark with pink color suspicious TCP/UDP ports owned by unidentified applications (Applications without version information and icons)
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/cports.html

wazzag

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Re: Huge updates?
« Reply #10 on: September 23, 2009, 11:44:49 AM »
Windows is up to date
The monitoring programme (NetLimiter pro) basically shows what is downloading and when, it also keeps statistics so I can check back, hour by hour, programme by programme, I think I was reading it wrong when I said ashwebv was scanning for no reason

WebShield does not start any connection and does not take any quota.
Some program is starting an http traffic and the traffic is being scanned locally by WebShield.
OK thanks for straightening that out for me, I think I was reading it wrong

I have only been monitoring for two weeks, since my last lot of quota got eaten
What seems to happen is when I am back up to broadband speed my data usage increases dramatically, then I get shaped (slowed down) and it's back to normal(ish) usage
So atm I am only speculating it is actually Avast (but it seems to be)
A couple of days ago setup began downloading, I stopped it at 66mb because the internet was virtually unusable while it was downloading (because I'm shaped dammit!)
In the two weeks of monitoring setup has downloaded 70 odd mb, 66mb in one hit
This seems a lot to me for two weeks of updates (especially considering it has also used 4mb in that time) 

forjet is looking into it, he seems to think it has something to do with server behaviour

But still, 70 odd mb of updates in 14 days seems a lot of updating to me
A new month starts for me again in 5 days, then I will be back up to speed and keeping a wary eye on things

Thanks for everyone's help and input so far