Author Topic: Web Shield seems to cause slow internet connections  (Read 42887 times)

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Canonman

  • Guest
Web Shield seems to cause slow internet connections
« on: February 19, 2010, 05:20:11 AM »
Using Avast! Free 5.0.418 with up to date defs.  Internet speed is half what it used to be.  If I turn off the Web Shield my speed returns.  When I first installed Avast! I used 5.0.377 and I had no problems with network speed.  Only noticed this issue about a 7 to 10 days ago.

Web shield ON = Half normal network speed.
Web Shield OFF = Everything returns to normal speed.

What can be done to lessen the impact on network speed?  I'm pretty open for suggestions.

Thanks


My System Specs
AMD Athlon 1.2
1 Gig DDR RAM
Windows XP Pro SP3
Roadrunner Broadband
« Last Edit: February 19, 2010, 05:30:32 AM by Canonman »

olddog

  • Guest
Re: Web Shield seems to cause slow internet connections
« Reply #1 on: February 19, 2010, 08:15:53 AM »
What can be done to lessen the impact on network speed?  I'm pretty open for suggestions.

Not sure when you refer to network speed if you are talking about local access or transfer performance between two PC's on the LAN, or whether you are talking of Internet performance of one or more PC's on the network. Also not sure how you are measuring this. 

That said, and on the basis that you say turning the Web shield off remedies the problem, I suggest you try to narrow it down a bit. Start with leaving the Webshield ON, and the "Scan web (HTTP) traffic" ON, and the "Enable Web scanning" ON, but remove the tick from "Use intelligent stream scanning"
If that doesn't improve the situation, then try also removing the tick from "Enable Web Scanning" (Note that at this stage the shield will then only be using URL blocking).

Please Post back what you find

Hally

  • Guest
Re: Web Shield seems to cause slow internet connections
« Reply #2 on: February 19, 2010, 02:50:46 PM »
Hi  :)

Like I've Just Told Someone Else...
Quote
The only Internet problem I have with Avast 5 .. Is exactly the same one I had with Avast 4.8   ::)
And That Is...
The little Internet Globe Icon in my Taskbar has a tendency to vanish when using Avast ( 5 - or - 4.8 ) :'(
Opening a Browser or Webpage brings my Internet straight back again ???
Very Annoying!   >:(
However! - Thank God! ..  My surfing speeds are not in anyway affected by this  8)

Broadband ... Up To 8Mbps

My surfing / browsing speed seem absolutely fine   :D
However!
I haven't been able to test my actual Speed yet.
Coz...
My son is off school at the moment - & - Constantly on... PC - XBox - PS3
So my speeds would be very unlikely to be accurate anyway.
I'll Test My Speed! ... As soon as my son is back at school  ;D


Hally

Offline Gopher John

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Re: Web Shield seems to cause slow internet connections
« Reply #3 on: February 19, 2010, 04:46:01 PM »
@Canonman

Is WebShield still on default settings or have you modified them?  Under Sensitivity, setting "Test whole files" can slow down internet access especially on large files.

AMD A6-5350M APU with Radeon HD Graphics, 8.0GB RAM, Win7 Pro SP1 64bit, IE11
i7-3610QM 2.3GHZ, 8.0GB Ram,  Nvidia GeForce GT 630M 2GB, Win7 Pro SP1 64bit, IE 11
Common to both: Avast Premium Security 19.7.2388, WinPatrol Plus, SpywareBlaster 5.5, Opera 12.18, Firefox 68.0.2, MBam Free, CCleaner

Arup

  • Guest
Re: Web Shield seems to cause slow internet connections
« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2010, 03:54:56 AM »
Download Bit Meter from http://codebox.org.uk/controller?page=home and then measure your actual throughput.

zfactor

  • Guest
Re: Web Shield seems to cause slow internet connections
« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2010, 06:25:07 AM »
i have the same issue with 418 but i did not with previous versions.

olddog

  • Guest
Re: Web Shield seems to cause slow internet connections
« Reply #6 on: February 20, 2010, 01:07:03 PM »
i have the same issue with 418 but i did not with previous versions.

Did you post with anything in mind, or just as a "me too".

I'm assuming if you have the same problem as the OP you have read the other posts in this thread, so what is your response to

Quote
I suggest you try to narrow it down a bit. Start with leaving the Webshield ON, and the "Scan web (HTTP) traffic" ON, and the "Enable Web scanning" ON, but remove the tick from "Use intelligent stream scanning". If that doesn't improve the situation, then try also removing the tick from "Enable Web Scanning" (Note that at this stage the shield will then only be using URL blocking).

Please Post back what you find

Also when posting with a problem, it alway helps if you specify the basic PC details, CPU type, speed, Memory size, operating system, Service packs and other Malware & firewall software installed.

Canonman

  • Guest
Re: Web Shield seems to cause slow internet connections
« Reply #7 on: February 22, 2010, 03:43:14 AM »
Quote
Not sure when you refer to network speed if you are talking about local access or transfer performance between two PC's on the LAN, or whether you are talking of Internet performance of one or more PC's on the network. Also not sure how you are measuring this.

That said, and on the basis that you say turning the Web shield off remedies the problem, I suggest you try to narrow it down a bit. Start with leaving the Webshield ON, and the "Scan web (HTTP) traffic" ON, and the "Enable Web scanning" ON, but remove the tick from "Use intelligent stream scanning"
If that doesn't improve the situation, then try also removing the tick from "Enable Web Scanning" (Note that at this stage the shield will then only be using URL blocking).
I have been measuring the download and upload speed with the Speakeasy site.

When I say that my speed has declined I am referring to the measurements that I am getting on Speakeasy.  I also ran NetStat Live from AnalogX and it seems to match closely the results on Speakeasy.

I have tried different combination's of enabling and disabling different shields to see if something else is causing the slowdown.  The only thing that seems to directly impact the speed is the Web Shield option, even when using the default settings.

I am using Comodo free firewall.  I have tried disabling this to see if it had any impact but it didn't change anything.  Currently there are no other security software programs running on this machine.
« Last Edit: February 22, 2010, 03:46:02 AM by Canonman »

gdiloren

  • Guest
Re: Web Shield seems to cause slow internet connections
« Reply #8 on: February 22, 2010, 03:49:39 AM »
Same for me. Indeed the internet speed is slower by about 40-50% with high speed. Since modern day time we all use high speed, ALWIL should look at this big problem. For myself I switched back to AVIRA CLASSIC PERSONAL (NO WEB SHIELD). I would like the web shield protection but it shouldn't affect the overall speed of my connection. Reason for that:I pay for the speed ;)

olddog

  • Guest
Re: Web Shield seems to cause slow internet connections
« Reply #9 on: February 22, 2010, 04:19:30 AM »
Canonman,

So what happened specifically when you tried varying the settings for the web shield as suggested in my previous post, namely:

Quote
I suggest you try to narrow it down a bit. Start with leaving the Webshield ON, and the "Scan web (HTTP) traffic" ON, and the "Enable Web scanning" ON, but remove the tick from "Use intelligent stream scanning". If that doesn't improve the situation, then try also removing the tick from "Enable Web Scanning" (Note that at this stage the shield will then only be using URL blocking).
[Unquote]

Also you have still not supplied any details about the PC as asked.

gdiloren,

Quote
.. I would like the web shield protection but it shouldn't affect the overall speed of my connection.
[Unquote]

There is no such thing as a free meal - live protection from a Web shield involves extra processing of data in realtime, and it will have an effect on performance. It is a case of whether the reduction is excessive, and for many users it quite plainly isn't. You too could try to narrow it down a bit by trying what I suggested to Cannonman rather than simply writing off the whole Webshield.

Out of interest, why did you change to Avira with no web shield when you could have simply turned off, or even completely uninstalled the Web shield in Avast!?

Canonman

  • Guest
Re: Web Shield seems to cause slow internet connections
« Reply #10 on: February 22, 2010, 07:26:43 AM »
Quote
Canonman,

So what happened specifically when you tried varying the settings for the web shield as suggested in my previous post, namely:

Quote
I suggest you try to narrow it down a bit. Start with leaving the Webshield ON, and the "Scan web (HTTP) traffic" ON, and the "Enable Web scanning" ON, but remove the tick from "Use intelligent stream scanning". If that doesn't improve the situation, then try also removing the tick from "Enable Web Scanning" (Note that at this stage the shield will then only be using URL blocking).
[Unquote]

Also you have still not supplied any details about the PC as asked.

gdiloren,

I have gone through the steps you suggested.  The only change that I could see was turning off "Scan web (HTTP) traffic" seemed to help some but very little.  Turning of "Use intelligent stream scanning" didn't seem to change anything.  It seems that no matter what combination of options I try I see very little difference.  All combination's result in approximately half the normal speed.  The only way that I can get my normal speeds are by turning off the Web Shields which I feel is not an option.  Results are the same using IE or Firefox.

PC Details
AMD Athlon 1.2Ghz
1Gig DDR RAM
Windows XP Pro SP3
Comodo Firewall (disabling this does nothing to improve speeds btw)
avast! free AV 5.0.418

YoKenny

  • Guest
Re: Web Shield seems to cause slow internet connections
« Reply #11 on: February 22, 2010, 10:14:21 AM »
Try un-installing Comodo as its device drivers are still active even though you disable the firewall. 

Try downloading a large file like setup_av_free.exe:
http://www.filehippo.com/download_avast_antivirus

I see no slowdown with avast! Web Shield active.

olddog

  • Guest
Re: Web Shield seems to cause slow internet connections
« Reply #12 on: February 22, 2010, 10:18:13 AM »
Canonman,

First, what shields do you have running - If you have the behavour shield running try (a) turning it Off and (b) uninstalling it. I have uninstalled it on two of my PC's, and for about 95% of the time, my internet performance using either IE7 or Firefox and with the web shield on and using the default values is quite good. In fact there is almost no significant difference when the web shield is turned off and speed tests are carried out.

For the other 5% of the time, and at this stage virtually at random during normal browsing, internet speed with either IE7 or Firefox becomes really slow, and it doesn't seem to be on any particular site. If anything Firefox seems to be affected more than IE7. Access to the same site at the same time from another computer running Avast 4.8 via a common router is quite normal.

Restarting the browser doesn't seem to help. When this problem occurs turning off the Web shield completely does appear to overcome the problem, and turning it back on most often brings the problem back (although some times restarting the web shield cuts off access to the internet altogether and then requires a reboot). In any event a reboot without changing the shields also seems to remove the problem.

At this stage it appears that in my case turning off "use intelligent stream scanning" reduces the extent of the problem, however because the system can work for 95% of the time with no significant impact on performance, the problem is not going to be easy to find. (I may be on the wrong track altogether but I wish I could see what is happening to packet retry level when the problem is present)

One thing that you might look at - the web shield is processing data in realtime, and there might be some clash or interaction if you have other software also providing real time protection.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

EntitY

  • Guest
Re: Web Shield seems to cause slow internet connections
« Reply #13 on: February 22, 2010, 09:05:53 PM »
I have Avast Free on XP Home SP-3. I only run with a Router, Win-Firewall, Iron Browser. I notice a significant drop in download speed and the only cure I have found is turning off the Avast Web Shield. The problem is in the Web Shield and not a problem--Over There...

Offline Yezinki

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Re: Web Shield seems to cause slow internet connections
« Reply #14 on: February 22, 2010, 09:28:05 PM »
I agree totally enabling webshield decreased my speed by almost HALF.........so I unchecked it now back to normal........using zoom adsl X6 modem.
OS: W7 Pro 32bit.

Protection:  Avast 12.3 Free, MBAM.