Hi, I wonder if there is any way to automate the virus removal in 4.8 Home Edition, i.e. have the question of what to do about the virus be answered “Delete permanently”. (Why would I want to keep them? To cuddle with?)
A search of this forum showed that somebody asked the same question in 2007:
Is-it possible to automatically remove viruses (say in quarantine) during a scan using "avast 4! Edition Familiale" ? Actually this soft stops and asks me for a choice (suppression, quarantine, ..) each time it finds a virus during a scan of my hard disks. This fact is particularly laborious when the scan duration is large (minutious scan).
…and got this somewhat snooty answer:
My own feeling on this is you should use the default interactive action. This way you know exactly what is going on with your system. If you are getting so many warnings, that you want to automate this process, I believe you should review your security practice - filter emails at source, delete from server rather than download them, review the sites they visit, etc.
See the avast help file, Resident Protection: Standard Shield Provider Settings - “Advanced” Page.
Click on Standard Shield and then on Customize.
Go to Advanced tab and select Silent Mode and the General answer No.
…which of course begs the question: how can you set options in a help file?
But really, does anybody know how to do this? I would be very grateful for an (informed) answer!
In Home version you can check the option “Don’t show this window again” as soon as the first virus warning appears, and click on “No action” button. This way, nothing will be done and you will be presented the results at the end (and you can perform actions from there).
Well, that’s the way it is, I am afraid; you may call it a limitation of the Home Edition of avast!. In the Professional Edition, you can configure the task to perform automatic actions (or, don’t do anything).
In the Home version, you may check the “Don’t show again” checkbox in the Virus warning dialog - but only after the first virus has been found (because you won’t see the virus dialog until then).
Or you can use Silent Mode:
Left click the ‘a’ blue icon.
It will start On-access protection
Do the same for the and Outlook/Exchange plugin.
The answer Yes in Silent Mode keeps the virus in the file or into the message (attach) and continue the scanning. You can’t configure ‘delete the infected file’ in the Home version.
You can do the same for Standard Shield provider, but it won’t be a good idea…
Silent mode in the case of the WebShield provider simply means that avast will keep pressing the “Abort connection” button for the user automatically.
As the author of the snooty reply, it would have been nice to post the complete reply and not part of it as it is taken out of context ;D
Even though I mentioned why I feel it inappropriate, I did give the answer. The reference to the help file is not to change but to show the full information. Below that reference was a small extract as to how this is achieved.
Hello all,
thanks Tech and DavidR for your replies. Tech; if it is indeed possible set Avast up the way you describe and have it do its job silently and present the results/infections at the end of the run, then I am perfectly satisfied with that.
I used to have AVG for anti-virus software but got p-ssed when my PC was infected for the second time with Virut while AVG was ‘on guard’ and thought I might give Avast a try. I don’t see the point with anti-virus software that, like AVG, tells me ‘after the fact’ that my PC is infected. Does anybody else here?
Oh, and DavidR; I’m sorry that I was less than fair to you. You are perfectly right to say that it’s wrong to quote somebody and not include the entire text. I stand corrected… :-[
Yes, and I do enjoy it! I will attach a few .jpg’s to this post that show the result of last nights scan where I used the settings you recommended. Comments would be much appreciated. 'Bye for now.
PS: after some 12 hours of (thorough) scanning 3% were done…but then there are some 1,25 TB to scan, most of it on USB 2.0 external drives.
Files that can’t be scanned are just that, not an indication they are suspicious/infected, just unable to be scanned.
Only those positively detected as viruses should be dealt with and I would still suggest deletion is a poor first option, move to the chest and investigate.
Thank you DavidR, I will check out the links. On the subject of virus-infection; I would like your opinion on something a friend said the other day as you seem to know what you’re talking about. This friend suggested I get a hardware fire-wall since a software fire-wall allows an intruder access way up to the highest levels in the OSI structure (to the 5:th or 6:th layer). What’s your opinion?
You say:
What is PITA? I suppose from the context it has something to do with generating fear/concern where it really isn’t warranted, but I’d like to know.
Yes, we are like a big family here, helping each other! The avast forum is really great if you want to learn about avast, and if you have any questions, you often get fast answers
So I’ve noticed, and how sweet it is…one thing though; what use is the “Insert Image”-button when I post? All that happens is I get left-bracket-IMG-right-bracket–left-bracket-slash-IMG-right-bracket and I’m sorry for being so dense, but what good is that? You can’t copy/paste to inside the brackets…at least I can’t…beats me.
Well I don’t know where they get their information as the firewall hardware or otherwise doesn’t control access to so called higher levels, presumably they mean permissions and that is controlled by the Operating system (not the firewall) in two ways.
If you log-on using an account with administrative privileges by default any malware that came through would inherit those same permissions (again nothing to do with a firewall).
If you log-on with a limited user account there is such a thing as privilege escalation normally taking advantage of a vulnerability in software (out of date OS, etc.), again outside of the control of the firewall.
A hardware firewall unless it specifically states it doesn’t have outbound protection.
Any malware that manages to get past your defences will have free reign to connect to the internet to either download more of the same, pass your personal data (sensitive or otherwise, user names, passwords, keylogger retrieved data, etc.) or open a backdoor to your computer, so outbound protection is essential. Guess what, the hardware firewall couldn’t do a thing about it as it is a request originating from the computer so would retain the permissions of the users account.
By now you have had the acronyms explanation of pain in the rear ;D
You paste the path to the image between the opening and closing IMG tags, the easiest method is to attach the image to the post.
When you click the Reply button, there is an Additional Options link, this expands the options to attach a file, that can be an image file or a text file (.log or .txt).
Thank you DavidR for a most thorough answer to my question. And a most welcome one at that, as setting one up (I have been through that rigmarole before) is a PITA I can do without
As for the image thingy, you say: “You paste the path to the image between the opening and closing IMG tags.” What path? The path to an image residing on my PC or the path provided by an online media hosting site such as ImageShack?
In either case, it seems a moot point as the Paste option is grayed out on the right-click menu (on my PC, that is) as you can see below.
What I would want is simply the possibility to insert, by right-clicking and pasting, an image I had previously copied from a folder on my PC. Right there, in the post, not as an attachment. There are other fora (notably PC-World where I am a member) that let you do that, so it is possible.
And thanks for the welcome. Like I said before I do feel welcome. I like the low-key, friendly tone of the posts - makes a fella feel right at home, right away
The image tag is designed to import an image that you already have on the internet, somewhere like image shack as you mention or photobucket.com. So if you had an image shack account you visit that and copy the img location, see attached image and that is what you would paste between the IMG tags or just copy the complete code including the IMG bit and paste that anywhere in your post (below).
That is why I mentioned the easiest method to attach the image from your HDD.
First you have to have selected the path ‘Copy’ before that Paste option in the context menu is active. But that implies you have somewhere saved the URL for the image.
This forum software isn’t an image editor so can’t copy an image into the post, that is why you have to physically point to the file you want to attach and it uploads it.
