Avast 5 WebShield slowing down your web surfing?

[RejZoR]

I don't have any problems with using uTorrent with avast!.

[anho]

Today my computer is running without any problem. www.aftonbladet.se is loading at <2sec without the computer freezing. All shields and firewall on.

[petusalem]

@vlk

There is huge difference when talking about SLOWING DOWN WEB SURFING compared to DOWNLOADING DATA FILES.
Web surfing speed is ok.

Your question is badly formulated.

[Vlk]

There is huge difference when talking about SLOWING DOWN WEB SURFING compared to DOWNLOADING DATA FILES.
Web surfing speed is ok.

Your question is badly formulated.

Fair enough, so it does slow down downloading of larger files in your case?
Can you give me an example of such URLs?
Does it happen with all files, or just some?

What other programs do you have installed?
Avast Free AV, Pro AV or IS?

Thanks
Vlk

[petusalem]

@vlk
 
I have Pro AV installed. It goes to all files, when downloading larger than one megabyte files. Of course you have to rule out dial-up connections. You have to have "fast" enough connection when this problem kicks in. Disabling webshield corrects the situation. No problems with other AV's.

[Vlk]

I have Pro AV installed. It goes to all files, when downloading larger than one megabyte files. Of course you have to rule out dial-up connections. You have to have "fast" enough connection when this problem kicks in. Disabling webshield corrects the situation. No problems with other AV's.

What about just turning off HTTP scanning in the Web Shield? (unchecking the only checkbox on the Web Shield's main page).

I'm testing with various connections, from dial-up to 100mbit, and don't seem able to simulate the problem...

Do you have any other worth-mentioning software installed? (maybe a hijackthis log would be helpful).



Thanks
Vlk

[petusalem]

@vlk

No other software here. Disabling http scanning cures the situation. I don't want to share my computer details via hijack, sorry.
Kaspersky had this same problem when they introduced web (http:80) scanning 2 (?) years ago. They got it fixed.

[Vlk]

Are you new to avast? Have you been using avast 4.8? Were you seeing similar behavior?

Avast has had the Web Shield for like 5 years now, and from what I can tell, most our users consider it extremely unobtrusive (unlike many other AV's). My bet is that WebShield itself won't be the only cause - it will probably be a conflict between WebShield and something else.

Regarding the 3rd party software, I understand that you don't want to send a HJT log - but how about generating a memory dump of the AvastSvc.exe process (while you're downloading some files via WebShield), that would help us see what's going on under the hood, and maybe if there are some 3rd party modules (Winsock LSP's, for example) loaded into the avast process and possibly interfering.

Thanks
Vlk

[jimb11]

@Vlk:

I sent you a email on Tue, 3/9/10 about a problem with my web shield and never got a reply! I would like to help you troubleshoot the problem but you don't seem to care!

Jim Baughman

[tovento]

I have been a user of Avast for a number of years.  I have been a big fan of 4.8 and just recently realized that v5 was released.  I read on fileforum.betanews.com that the memory footprint of Avast has been reduced, so I decided to upgrade.  I have a Lenovo T61 with a 2.4 GHz processor and 3 gigs of ram.

I have not seen a slowdown in loading websites really to be honest.  I have seen a bit of a slowdown when doing things such as un-raring files.  I have however noticed a BIG decrease in download speed from my newsgroup server.  I would say that newsgroups have very consistent speeds and can be used to test connection speeds.

Anyhow, I noticed that my speeds have gone from 1-1.5 MB (yes, megaBYTES) per second to about half that.  I have tried changing settings so that NNTP traffic wouldn't be scanned as vigorously (as I was able to do in 4..  I was not able to fix the problem.  I saw this forum and tried playing with the webshield.  I tried turning webshield off, and didn't see any immediate effect (so I turned it back on).  I then tried disabling the "Scan http traffic" option.  No immediate effect, but in less than 5 min, my newsgroup download speed has returned to normal levels.

I had checked task manager to see if there was high CPU usage, and there wasn't anything there indicating this.  Avast was using about 4-8% CPU.  Total CPU usage was about 15%, so lots of room to go.

It seems the HTTP traffic scanning option does indeed slow things down.  I'm using Chrome as my browser which is fast even on slow connections, so maybe that's why I didn't see a big change.

BTW, this is with Avast 5.0.462

[gdiloren]

gdiloren and others who also have the problem, are you also running uTorrent on your system?

Sorry for being late. No, I never used u Torrent or any other P2P. As stated, I find the same slowdown in surfing with WebGuard of Avira than WebShield of AVAST 5. I'm confused as AVIRA works fine on my PC whereas AVAST 5 I was forced to uninstall rapidly for strange behavior (I always use MAXIMUM protection, though!). I'm even more confused when I read reports by others that your software is among the best and works fine ON THEIR computer. It's sure frustrating for me as I used AVAST since ever (1997). I will try to install it again when ever I get more time. Sorry... Hope I could help more. Thank you!

[Arup]

I use utorrent and Avast 5 with no issues, for browsing I use Opera 10.5 which works quite well in fact, very minimal impact with web shield on.

[cazoza]

Well, i have experienced in some rare ocations, when downloading a file, it just finish before it's fully downloaded, i don't know if it's the web shield. But it's very rare. The last time i did experienced that issue was when downloading avast 5 free 5.0.462 from avast site. And it just stoped at 5 mb of 43.8 mb. And that happens rarely, but it's not limited to avast site, i have seen that behaviour in download.com, during some ftp sessions, and when opening some sites like minijuegostop.com.mx, whit this site, sometimes happens that the games don't load, and with a refresh they get loaded. Now you mention it, it didn't happened for me with previous build, just with 5.0.462. But it's rarely.

[bobobo]

Hi. I upgraded from v4.8 to 5.0 yesterday and was virtually unable to connect to the internet afterwards. I disabled the Web Shield this morning and browsing is back to normal. Unchecking the "Scan web (HTTP) traffic" box did NOT fix the problem.

[Vlk]

Hi. I upgraded from v4.8 to 5.0 yesterday and was virtually unable to connect to the internet afterwards. I disabled the Web Shield this morning and browsing is back to normal. Unchecking the "Scan web (HTTP) traffic" box did NOT fix the problem.

Most likely, a firewall is blocking AvastSvc.exe process from accessing the Internet then...