About two KNONW and OLD bugs

[12-es_csaj]

There are two serious bugs:
1. avast! Web Shield blocks browsers' internet access after an update (program or engine) in some user's computer. Bug has been here since the release of 5.0.677
2. avast! Web Shield reduces bandwidth (I hope that I wrote this word correctly) on some user's computer to half or quarter of the original width that is paid by the user. Bug has been here since... maybe the release of 5.0!!
My question is... why AVAST guys don't fix these serious bugs? I think that on of the developers' purposes is to reach larger and larger amount of users, and of PAID users. But... They lose users because these two bugs.
Or... guys are working hard to solve these problems but it's not so easy??


And... avast caused big problems and headaches for me, too. Since about the middle of July, my internet was horrible. I updated to 6.0, and since then, the net speed is fine. Coincidence? I wouldn't think so...

[bob3160]

Strange because I've never encountered any of the problems you mentioned.
I've installed avast! 5 and now 6 on hundreds of computers. 
Also haven't had the problem reported to me.

[12-es_csaj]

Strange because I've never encountered any of the problems you mentioned.
I've installed avast! 5 and now 6 on hundreds of computers. 
Also haven't had the problem reported to me.

I sometimes read about these two bugs on different forums.

[YoKenny]

I sometimes read about these two bugs on different forums.

A reference to the different forums would help.

[igor]

I don't think they are bugs - but rather issues caused by other software.
Namely, the first one is most likely caused by 3rd party firewalls. The firewall finds out that the executable accessing the network (in this case, avast! service) has changed - and it would like to ask the user whether to permit or block the access. However, since the avast! service is started rather early during windows boot, there is nobody to ask (the user hasn't logged on yet). So, the firewall just decides to block the access. And, since since all the web traffic is routed through the service (WebShield)... web browsing is blocked in effect. But, it has nothing to do with avast! code itself - just with the fact that the executable has changed, i.e. it can happen during any avast! update, no matter what was changed in the code (if anything).

The usual solution is to remove the existing rule(s) from the firewall, and let them be created again.

[bob3160]

Igor,
Would checking off the "load avast! services after loading other system service"
help this problem or is that still not a long enough a delay

[igor]

I think the service is started before user logon in any case.
I am not saying that this is 100% of the cases, the scenario might be different... but I believe it's quite a common case, because we see this "problem" appearing after every program update, independently of the changes.

[12-es_csaj]

I don't think they are bugs - but rather issues caused by other software.
Namely, the first one is most likely caused by 3rd party firewalls. The firewall finds out that the executable accessing the network (in this case, avast! service) has changed - and it would like to ask the user whether to permit or block the access. However, since the avast! service is started rather early during windows boot, there is nobody to ask (the user hasn't logged on yet). So, the firewall just decides to block the access. And, since since all the web traffic is routed through the service (WebShield)... web browsing is blocked in effect. But, it has nothing to do with avast! code itself - just with the fact that the executable has changed, i.e. it can happen during any avast! update, no matter what was changed in the code (if anything).
The usual solution is to remove the existing rule(s) from the firewall, and let them be created again.

Thank you very much for this answer.
I have other questions... why does it not happen with other AVs? Their updates are different? They don't load as early as avast at boot?
And... this problem happens on computers that have firewall software? I read lots of cases but I didn't pay attention to the "victim's" FW because I thought that the FW not counts (related to this problem).
I know people (not personally but on the internet) who use COMODO and avast!, but they don't experience problems like this. Why? Or that's a question which is so hard to be answered for you, developers, too?

[Hermite15]

just one thing and that's been acknowledged by Avast (Vlk) after I started a thread about it: the web shield does indeed considerably reduces Internet bandwidth: while that's hardly noticeable while browsing obviously, it is when it comes to downloads through Internet connections above 50Mb/s. With the web shield on, download speeds maxes at approximatively 25Mb/s... that is, when using a browser's integrated download manager. Two solutions: either deactivate the web shield temporarily before starting a download, or use an external download manager that won't be monitored by the web shield.

[Waterfiets]

These bugs got reported to me a lot, and almost all of them said they had a fiber optic (100Mb/s) connection which got cut in half by the avast! Web Shield.

The first bug about the connection blocking could be fixed at the HTTP Ports in v5, in v6 all the ports are automaticly added so it shouldn't happen.