2 questions need fast answer to the first

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

first question: I am upgrading my hard drive and am going to clean install win xp (get rid of old stuff lurking on present install). I need to know if this is going to affect anything. I plan on using avast for a long while but my updates exp wednesday june 1 at 1:00 am. is this going to affect me and if so what do I need to do.
current ver 4.6 home edition
build mar 2005(4.6.623)

second question: what EXACTLY is web sheild and what does it do (block popups, block ads, etc.) if it does this the problems people may be having is not with webshield but with other apps that do the same thing(s).

thanks ???

2

Just reinstall avast! on your new drive. You can use the same license number as now.
You can also renew it for free if it’s Home Edition license.

Web Shield is not a ad blocker,also not popup blocker.
Web Shield scans all downloaded/viewed files before they EVEN enter your browser. This is very useful for JPG exploits or other nasties that are “executed” directly from browser.
Web Shield also checks all archives if they contain malware (Standard Shield in Home version doesn’t do that,so it’s very useful).

3

  1. It shouldn’t affect you provided you have saved your original registration key that was sent to you. If you haven’t you can register again, if you use the same email as your original registration, you should get the same registration key back. If you register with a different email address you should get a new registration key valid for 14 months, probably the best option since you have less than two months left.

  2. Check out the avast help file, web shield isn’t a pop-up or ad blocker, it monitors http traffic for infection, stopping the page load prior to it getting on to your browser cache.

Extract from help file:

[b]Web Shield - Provider Settings[/b]

Web Shield provider protects your computer from viruses that may infect your computer when browsing the Internet - especially when downloading files from web pages.

If you - possibly by mistake - download an infected file and try to start it, avast! will prevent the infection thanks to its Standard Shield provider (which scans all files that you start of open). With Web Shield, however, the virus will be detected even sooner - during the download of the file. So, Web Shield makes your computer even safer than before.