Disabling shields interrupts downloads in browsers. This normal?

[jasoncollege24]

OS Windows 7 32-bit (one computer) XP SP3 32-bits (Other computer)
Tested Browsers: Internet Explorer 8, 9, Google Chrome

Reproducible? Every time

Start download in your browser, then disable shields. After the dimmed desktop popup (where you click yes) your download says it's complete (no matter how much was left of it) but when you try to run it, the download is corrupted, and you must restart the download from scratch.

Is this supposed to happen like this, or is this some sort of bug? Avast! is the only AV I've *ever* seen behave this way.

[DavidR]

If you start a download, that would no doubt be being filtered through the web shield local proxy.

Stopping the web shield is I would say going to impact the download as I believe at least the connection would be dropped and or the download location is no longer the same, e.g. the web shield local host proxy.

I have no idea why you would even want to do this.

[jasoncollege24]

I am very knowledgeable when it comes to computers. In this particular case, I was downloading a file I knew was virus free from a trusted website, and other than that page and that download, had nothing else internet related open, and I was not changing pages, so it wasn't exactly likely I was going to get infected that way.

I disabled all the shields because I was copying a bunch of files from one drive to another (over 100GB) all of which I know for a fact were virus free. The constant scanning of the files as they were copying was slowing things down considerably. Turning off the shields cut the copy time by more than 60%... Why have it on if you know there is no danger of infection at that point in time? Keeping it on when it's not needed is a waste of resources that slow your system down, and takes up said resources that other programs could use.

This is not to say that virus scanners are not useful, just not needed if you know that what you're doing is safe. I always turn them back on after I'm done performing the action i turned them off for, and I don't go actively surfing the web, or looking at anything I'm unsure about while they are disabled.

There are times when I go to play my online MMO games and during the game, I completely disable the service all together until I'm done. If i'm playing these games and nothing else, I'm pretty safe 

Oh and the version of Avast is version 7 free, so it's not like i was turning off a firewall to open myself to hackers.

[DavidR]

Trusted website is a bit of a misnomer, considering that hacked sites are a major source of infection.

[jasoncollege24]

Been to that site countless times before, and considering I had been browsing around the various places on the site for round about an hour and a half or so before I started my download and Avast! didn't block or warn about anything... didn't seem hacked, or infected to me... I trusted it at that moment, hence, it was a trusted site.

It's open to interpretation

[DavidR]

The trouble is you won't know if a site is hacked until it happens to you and avast alerts (if you have it on), you only have to browse the viruses and worms forum to see many such examples.

[jasoncollege24]

Single page properties... (no other pages open)

• No ads of any kind (even if there was I have an ad blocker)
• no meta/auto refresh
• no redirects
• no moving images
• no automatic download
• no active scripts
• no popups/popunders
• Just text, clickable links, and a couple of JPG images on the page.

uhhh... don't I have to click a link, navigate away to another page, refresh the page, open a new page, or otherwise be actively doing something with the browser in this case to actually get an infection from it? I didn't even restart the download until the shields were back up.

Viruses and such generally have to be activated in some fashion before the user (or their network) is infected. things like...

• Navigating to an infected website or webpage
• Clicking on an infected link
• An infected rotating ad (such as those on facebook, or myspace)
• An infected Popup or popunder
• Downloading an infected file from a website, or email and running it
• Opening an infected file from ANY location

and other such things. In Windows XP and later systems, the auto-run feature of removable drives (USB, Flash, etc) was disabled as a safety feature because there were some viruses that would propogate to removable media and modify or create the Autorun.inf or autorun.ini (Whichever one it is) to automatically run the virus once the drive was attached.

And.. if I'm already infected when I turn off the shields, then that means Avast couldn't catch it anyway, even if it was on.

Been messing with computers on an advanced level for about 20 years. I've gotten pretty good at dealing with viruses, and malware, including cleaning them out by hand. with what I was doing, and how I was doing it, I don't see how I was in any danger of getting infected. The few times I've gotten a virus when AV was turned off or not installed was because I was doing something stupid... like actively clicking on links and browsing web pages that had rotating ads. Last virus I caught that way was more than 5 years ago. 

Disclaimer for the average end user... DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME! The stunt I pulled above can be dangerous to your computer if you do not know what you're doing.

[CharleyO]

***

In today's world, there is no such thing as a trusted website. You only have to land on a web page, do nothing, and you can still get malware.

Never, ever turn off your AV while connected to the Internet. That is the same as asking to get your computer infected.


***

[jasoncollege24]

Either way, my original question was answered.

[SpeedyPC]

Just make sure you set your Web shields sensitivity level set to normal (as default) not high, because I've noticed when I set it to high some cases my download tend to drop out most of the time and not always. Sometime you might get a bad internet traffic on/off which is normal, if you get a bad internet traffic all the time you need to contact you're internet provider to check you're internet line, some cases you might need a new internet modem depends how old you're current modem you have got or you're firewall settings might not set correctly so is tricky to pin-point you're problem my the computer.

[CraigB]

Just make sure you set your Web shields sensitivity level set to normal (as default) not high

Thats the only none default setting i use, iv always set the Web Shield to high and never any dropping out issues, as far as i know essexboy-DavidR-Tech and most of the other evanges all set this to the high setting without any problems.

[SpeedyPC]

Thats the only none default setting i use, iv always set the Web Shield to high and never any dropping out issues, as far as i know essexboy-DavidR-Tech and most of the other evanges all set this to the high setting without any problems.

Very interesting craigb some people might have this similar issue some do and some don't, I believe essexboy should investigate the user PC to make sure they don't have any further malware or any type virus of problem this user might have on their HD

[CraigB]

I believe essexboy should investigate the user PC to make sure they don't have any further malware or any type virus of problem this user might have on their HD

I dont think that is neccessary as the OP's problem of interupted downloads is due to turning off the avast shields while an actual download is taking place.

[jasoncollege24]

Correct. my problem was not related to malware. it was due to disabling the web shield during an active download. This results in an automatic drop out of the download. My internet is fine. Not a bad suggestion, tho i do use several malware scanners on a bi-weekly schedule to keep my computers as clean as I can.