First is, why doesn’t Avast scan the pen drive automatically? A good amount of infections occur from infected pen drives. I have often seen computers of my friends and relatives infected severely by malware by infected pen drives. I too have experienced it on my PC.
I think automatic scan of the pen drives should be done by Avast. I didn’t see this capability in the commercial version of Avast on the Compare page, so I don’t know if this feature is absent only from Avast free, or it isn’t there in other versions too.
Second issue is… with recent versions, Avast have stopped offline registration for Avast free. This is an issue, since some of my friends and families have computers running without internet (they can’t afford it). Earlier, I used to use offline registration to install Avast free on their computers, and also update the virus definitions via the definition file downloads.
But, with the offline registration now removed, I cannot install Avast on their computers. And for me, Avast is the best… it is quite light on older systems with decent specifications too. Finding another such antivirus is a difficult task. Also, some of the PCs are still on XP, and Avast works on XP too… but I am unable to install it because of this issue of offline registration.
Any solution for this?
Keep up the good work Avast team. I have been using Avast free for many years now, and it is excellent. I don’t like some of the features which are being added to the antivirus, as I don’t need them, and I think it’s just bloat, but I really appreciate, even with those features, Avast is still light on the system resources. Although, I should say, I don’t install all those features.
As far as I know avast free will register itself 10 days after the registration expired even if there is no network connection.
avast can scan pendrives, but doing it automatically would be a waste of time.
Nowadays they are all USB.
People don’t want to wait minutes (or even a hour) to use it if they are plugging in a USB stick or external USB drive, they want to plug it in and use it.
A good addition to avast is McShield which is especially for USB devices and performs some basic checks when a device is plugged in.
Really? Wow… when did that happen? Is that a change with the recent versions, when Avast made away with offline registration? Why the 10 day period though, and not shorter?
I don’t think it is a waste of time. And if people think it is a waste of time, then they are really giving a chance to malware to infect their systems.
I turn off the autorun feature in Windows via Control Panel. But, there are some malware which still autorun and pop open the window of the flash drive, and when that happens, the malware automatically infects the system. Otherwise, it is easy to catch malware by manually scanning the drive. But, in the previous situation, automatic scanning by Avast would be a good idea.
This feature is there in 360 Total Security, which is another free antivirus. It would be great if this feature comes to Avast too. I have been meaning to post about this feature since a long time, but got to doing it now only.
So if you have a full 1TB external disk you want the entire disk scanned evry time you connect it?
Otherwise, it is easy to catch malware by manually scanning the drive.
Only dormant files will be detected by this
But, there are some malware which still autorun and pop open the window of the flash drive, and when that happens, the malware automatically infects the system.
As said above, a very good program do detect these is MCShield
Really? Wow... when did that happen? Is that a change with the recent versions, when Avast made away with offline registration?
avast has posted about it.
Why the 10 day period though, and not shorter?
A system can be off-line.
But ask avast if you want to know more details.
From avast :
Don't worry the offline registration is not needed anymore. The program will automagically register itself 10 days after expiration even when you are offline ;-) If you are online you can just click the Activate button on main screen.
You clearly haven't gone through the avast settings.
There is the "scan when attaching option"
Why getting and reading a book about boats first when you want to know soldering irons ?
Just because the book is there…?
Files are harmless if they are not used.
Yes it sure is a waste of time.
A scan can be stopped for big drives… if a user doesn’t want it. And yes, if the disk belongs to another user, and if he/she has bought it to my PC for first time, or after long time, then I will take the time to scan it. Better to be safe than sorry.
But main problem is with the smaller pen drives. I sometimes have to go to a cyber cafe to get a printout of a document. And almost always, there is infection in the pen drive when I scan it.
Same with my friend, who has to go to a studio to get the photos printed. There PCs are infected too.
I have my cousins who are students, and they frequently put pen drives of others into their PCs, which are generally infected.
In these scenarios, it would be great if Avast automatically scanned the drive when it’s plugged in.
Only dormant files will be detected by this
Isn’t that the whole purpose of scanning beforehand, to detect malware before it becomes active on the system?
As said above, a very good program do detect these is MCShield
I install McShield on their PCs too… but I don’t think it will detect malware like a full fledged antivirus. That’s why automatic scanning of pen drive would be nice.
Thank you for the information. That’s great to know. Now I can install Avast free on offline PCs too.
Yes, I had not gone through that setting. This setting wasn’t there in the previous versions. I think this is new? I had not gone through these settings, because I thought they wouldn’t have changed. I didn’t read about this setting in changelog of recent versions too.
Thanks for informing about this setting. That’s good to know.
Was it necessary to post this? A person posts on the forum to get answers. The answers can be replied without taunting them with such comments.
It may seem like a waste of time to you… but to me, it seems like a life saver.
It may seem a waste of time for big external disks, but with smaller sized pen drives, again, it can be a life saver.
But main problem is with the smaller pen drives. I sometimes have to go to a cyber cafe to get a printout of a document. And almost always, there is infection in the pen drive when I scan it.
A perfect job for MCShield
I install McShield on their PCs too... but I don't think it will detect malware like a full fledged antivirus.
It will not because it is not a antivirus. MCShield is a special tool designed to catch those malware that jump disk, it only target those type that try to jump disk and it does this with behaviour and not signatures
This forums Viruses and Worms section is full of infections that avast did not catch and that the malware experts cleaned with MCShield. Also it is install end forget, it use no system resource as it is dormant until a usb device is pluged in, then it scan/clean and goes to sleep again