Avast Paid Version

[Sea Shells]

Avast is the most difficult soft-ware I've had to traverse, and that includes the "scan logs". I'm likely posting in the wrong place because I can't find the right place. Please move if necessary.

Today I did a full system scan and it turned up two "high" rated problems, with nothing apparently done.

The instructions in the 'Help" Section, read:

In this section, you can find a list of all scans that have been run and the scan results. Highlight any scan in the list and click on "View results" to see more information about what was detected and where.

In the result column, you can see what action, if any, has been taken.

If no action has been taken, click on the "v" icon in the column "Action to take" to reveal the list of options - Repair, Move to Chest, Delete, Do Nothing. The recommended action is "Move to Chest".

To apply the same action to all files, select the required action from the list at the bottom of the screen. You can change the action for any specific file by selecting the required action from the list in that particular row.

Once you have specified what action to take for each file, click "Apply" to carry out the selected actions.

The action taken will then be shown in the "result" column.

If you do not want to do anything at this stage, just select "Do nothing" and close the screen.

I tried this, and have tried before and absolutely nothing happens. The above is not correct.

Here is a screen-shot taken today of the problem, with apparently no action taken by Avast. Clicking the up/down arrows does absolutely nothing and the 'Apply' boxed is grayed out.

[Gargamel360]

Yep....because you cant move something from memory to chest.....you cant "move" something in memory to anywhere.

Adding to that, those are false positives....both those are related to Windows Defender loading signatures into memory.  So its better you leave them alone anyway.

I would advise a Quick Scan, once a month, minimum.  Avast! is scanning everything all the time anyway, so its a tad redundant to scan, imo. 

[Sea Shells]

Hi, thank you for your reply.

Yep....because you cant move something from memory to chest.....you cant "move" something in memory to anywhere.

Adding to that, those are false positives....both those are related to Windows Defender loading signatures into memory.  So its better you leave them alone anyway.

I haven't a clue what is memory, or what is not. I am concerned when a scan result is showing something with a "high" threat value. I leave Avast to do it's thing as it is set-up to do.

I hope I am alone in my lack of knowledge or my difficulty in interpreting the results. The help section I quoted earlier says nothing about memory to chest, and how to distinguish the difference.

[Gargamel360]

Oh, I'm not try to take anything away from what you are saying.  Just explaining.

You cant move anything from memory, you can only start/stop something.  I hardly expect most people to know this.

And the help file could definitely be more informative in this regard, but there is a line to be tread there.  You can't condense a class on PCs into a help file, so there is only so much it can explain without going into details that would only further confuse.

Out of curiosity, did you do a scan with Windows Defender right before the Avast! scan?

[CraigB]

My Guess is that your running a custom scan with scan memory ticked ? best to untick the scan memory box as once anything is detected in memory it is to late anyway and hopefully avast will get rid of that feature in version 7 when it comes out as it's a mostly obsolete scanning option anyway.
Best to use the default quick or full scans imo and you can also disable windows defender as it's not very good and avast has already got your backside covered  if you want a good program to do periodical scans on your system then malwarebytes free cant be beaten, there is also the paid version for realtime scanning ( $28 lifetime license )

[Gargamel360]

My Guess is that your running a custom scan with scan memory ticked ?

Full scan also scans memory, if more lightly.  It scans "modules loaded into memory".  Thats why I asked if she ran Defender right before Avast. 

Methinks perhaps some of the "mysterious memory detections" are the product of people running the pre-defined full scan right after they run scans with other anti-malware products they have installed (Defender/MBAM).

[Sea Shells]

Hi folks, it says custom under both quick and the long scan. Can't find a memory box. I do have Windows Defender, but don't run it *ever* unless it is running in the background.

I also have Malwarebites - the fellow in the computer shop said not to run it often as it creates more probs than it fixes.

I sound utterly illiterate I know. I'm not as bad as I sound, but with regard to Avast for some reason it makes no sense to me.

[CraigB]

If you have created custom scans they can easyly be deleted via the scans tab or if you have made to many changes to avast to remember then you can also reset the defaults through settings troubleshooting.  If you havn't turned off defender in the past then it will be running in the background and that can be disabled by going to control panel-windows defender-tools-options-administrator and untick the box that say's use this program.

Sound's like you need a new computer fellow because malwarebytes is an excellent program and the free version should be run on your system at least once every 1-2 weeks and i highly recommend the paid Pro version, see mine and others signitures.

[Sea Shells]

Hi, I do not recall setting up custom scans, it just says that. Another thing I find difficult to fathom.

Don't know about the computer fellow. I just know that he supports Avast. Before this computer I had a HP, - virtually no issues with that one at all. It just got too old, but had served us well.

The Windows Defender is not as you described, but will "stop" it when scanning. Avast cannot scan password protected things, and there is a host of those.

All in all, I'm not happy w/Avast, and will not pay again for it. I will run the Malwarebytes and see what happens.

Thank you very much.

[CraigB]

See pic for where to disable defender

[SafeSurf]

@ Sea Shells,

If you are not happy with the paid version of Avast, then next time why not use the Free version?  There will be a new Avast v.7 coming out with more improvements.  I've been using the Free version, but layer my security protection (see my signature) with MBAM (Malwarebytes Pro) and other tools such as add-on's in my browser.  The other security feature you do not mention is your firewall, which hopefully you have a strong one.

[ady4um]

I don't think avast GUI is *that* difficult to understand, but in any case, avast includes built in help (upper section of the main GUI -> "Help Center"). So maybe you should read it?

There are many articles and FAQs in the on line knowledgebase too.

[YoKenny]

See pic for where to disable defender

I do not have a problem with Windows Defender on my Windows 7 system but then I do not have avast! set to scan memory though.

[bob3160]

Avast cannot scan password protected things

Neither can you unless you know the password.

They also can't execute unless the password is applied and,
once that happens, avast! does scan it.

[Sea Shells]

I don't think avast GUI is *that* difficult to understand, but in any case, avast includes built in help (upper section of the main GUI -> "Help Center"). So maybe you should read it?

There are many articles and FAQs in the on line knowledgebase too.

I have read them and put in the search terms. However, the results I received were not applicable to the problem I was trying to solve.