Avast 5 scans less files than Avast 4.8 whats the deal

[system]

We installed 5.0 this morning AFTER a scan by 4.8. 4.8 scanned roughly 430,000 files on the system in question. Avast 5.0 reported scanning only 105,000 after a full scan of the same drive. Are we missing something here?

[Zyndstoff]

Depends on the settings that you can tweak.
There are differences between 4.8 and 5. But you can set 5 to scan everything, if you wish. Or create a custom scan.

[system]

I thought we had the setting for a full system scan. Is it necessary to set up a custom scan to include all files?

[Zyndstoff]

If you want to scan all files, a custom scan would be the best. (Include all packers etc…)
On the other hand: why?

Avasts default settings are good.

[system]

Good enough for us! We love AVAST and have it running on over a dozen systems. We just got spooked because that is a big difference in the number of files scanned. I’ll let the individual users decide on using the custom scan feature or not. thanks for the FAST response.

[Lisandro]

@bigmac post:3

I thought we had the setting for a full system scan. Is it necessary to set up a custom scan to include all files?

If they had done a full and complete scanning, a lot of people will be posting here and complaining that avast on-demand scanning is much much more slower than any other antivirus scanning… So, probably, the full scanning scans what makes sense to be scanned.

[DavidR]

@bigmac post:5

Good enough for us! We love AVAST and have it running on over a dozen systems. We just got spooked because that is a big difference in the number of files scanned. I’ll let the individual users decide on using the custom scan feature or not. thanks for the FAST response.

The problem is that there is:

1. no direct comparison between any of the standard scans, in 4.8 and 5.0. The closest is the 4.8 standard scan without archives and the Full scan in 5.0. Not to mention 5.0 is more
2. the new caching process after a time could cut down on the number of files scanned.
   So it would be difficult to draw a direct comparison between the two.

Personally I feel the new 5.0 Quick scan without archives (other than the defaults) is more than adequate for routine scans (I do this weekly) and takes very little time.

[Zyndstoff]

@DavidR post:7

@bigmac post:5

Good enough for us! We love AVAST and have it running on over a dozen systems. We just got spooked because that is a big difference in the number of files scanned. I’ll let the individual users decide on using the custom scan feature or not. thanks for the FAST response.

The problem is that there is:

1. no direct comparison between any of the standard scans, in 4.8 and 5.0. The closest is the 4.8 standard scan without archives and the Full scan in 5.0. Not to mention 5.0 is more
2. the new caching process after a time could cut down on the number of files scanned.
   So it would be difficult to draw a direct comparison between the two.

Personally I feel the new 5.0 Quick scan without archives (other than the defaults) is more than adequate for routine scans (I do this weekly) and takes very little time.

Yes, but 2. doesn’t apply in this case, since it was a scan right after installation, so no persistent cache present. 8)

[DavidR]

Thanks, I hadn’t gone back to the original post, only the one I quoted on.

However, for me the persistent scan doesn’t make much difference as far as files scanned are concerned, but it makes a huge difference to the duration of the scan. It appears that the file is still counted as having been scanned if in checking to see if it has changed since the last scan, it counts that as being scanned.

See images.