Got it!

[joaomt]

So I've finally installed avast 4.5.549.   It's much more complete than I expected.
The thing is... it's got 4 processes running.
ashmaisv.exe - 864k
ashdisp.exe -  7.388k
ashserv.exe - 16.048k
aswupdsv - 292k
Is it ok using 25.000k all the time?

Plus I have a firewall and I never use outlook or exchange (not that i know of).  The network shield doesn't have any attacks listed and both providers show 0 files scanned. Do I need the outlook/exchange and the network shield providers turned on?

I set all sensitivity to "high" so that the Eicar test would work instantly and not only with a requested scan. Is that too much for regular usage?

Well for now these were the doubts i had... more will soon come  
I'm very pleased with the program and didn't encountered any problems while installing, browsing or mailing. Keep on with the good work.

[Eddy]

What email client are you using?
If you only use Outlook Express, you can stop (or even remove) the Outlook/Exchange provider.

I don't know where you got those memory usage data from, but if it is from the taskmanager... Don't trust it. It is not reliable.

ashserv.exe is part of the on-access scanner.
ashmaisv.exe is the mail scanner.
ashdisp.exe shows the blue ball.
ashcmd.exe is the command line scanner (Pro version)
aswupdsv.exe is the part that checks for updates.
ashQuick.exe is Avast's quick scanner.

[joaomt]

I use Opera/M2 mail and other users are on Thunderbird. I hope those programs don't use anything related to outlook.
Don't understand why avast uses one provider for Outlook and another for Internet mail... I'll stop Outlook provider then.
the memory usage is from taskmanager.

2 doubts down and two to go  

Edit: thanks hehe

[lukor]

Plugin for Outlook/Exchange has many advantages over standard Internet Mail Provider (eg. SSL). But it is implemented as a DLL addon to Outlook and thus is of course not loaded, when Outlook is not running. So it won't use your memory.