I don’t have any problems with using uTorrent with avast!.
Today my computer is running without any problem. www.aftonbladet.se is loading at <2sec without the computer freezing. All shields and firewall on.
There is huge difference when talking about SLOWING DOWN WEB SURFING compared to DOWNLOADING DATA FILES.
Web surfing speed is ok.
Your question is badly formulated.
Fair enough, so it does slow down downloading of larger files in your case?
Can you give me an example of such URLs?
Does it happen with all files, or just some?
What other programs do you have installed?
Avast Free AV, Pro AV or IS?
Thanks
Vlk
I have Pro AV installed. It goes to all files, when downloading larger than one megabyte files. Of course you have to rule out dial-up connections. You have to have “fast” enough connection when this problem kicks in. Disabling webshield corrects the situation. No problems with other AV’s.
What about just turning off HTTP scanning in the Web Shield? (unchecking the only checkbox on the Web Shield’s main page).
I’m testing with various connections, from dial-up to 100mbit, and don’t seem able to simulate the problem…
Do you have any other worth-mentioning software installed? (maybe a hijackthis log would be helpful).
Thanks
Vlk
No other software here. Disabling http scanning cures the situation. I don’t want to share my computer details via hijack, sorry.
Kaspersky had this same problem when they introduced web (http:80) scanning 2 (?) years ago. They got it fixed.
Are you new to avast? Have you been using avast 4.8? Were you seeing similar behavior?
Avast has had the Web Shield for like 5 years now, and from what I can tell, most our users consider it extremely unobtrusive (unlike many other AV’s). My bet is that WebShield itself won’t be the only cause - it will probably be a conflict between WebShield and something else.
Regarding the 3rd party software, I understand that you don’t want to send a HJT log - but how about generating a memory dump of the AvastSvc.exe process (while you’re downloading some files via WebShield), that would help us see what’s going on under the hood, and maybe if there are some 3rd party modules (Winsock LSP’s, for example) loaded into the avast process and possibly interfering.
Thanks
Vlk
@Vlk:
I sent you a email on Tue, 3/9/10 about a problem with my web shield and never got a reply! I would like to help you troubleshoot the problem but you don’t seem to care!
Jim Baughman
I have been a user of Avast for a number of years. I have been a big fan of 4.8 and just recently realized that v5 was released. I read on fileforum.betanews.com that the memory footprint of Avast has been reduced, so I decided to upgrade. I have a Lenovo T61 with a 2.4 GHz processor and 3 gigs of ram.
I have not seen a slowdown in loading websites really to be honest. I have seen a bit of a slowdown when doing things such as un-raring files. I have however noticed a BIG decrease in download speed from my newsgroup server. I would say that newsgroups have very consistent speeds and can be used to test connection speeds.
Anyhow, I noticed that my speeds have gone from 1-1.5 MB (yes, megaBYTES) per second to about half that. I have tried changing settings so that NNTP traffic wouldn’t be scanned as vigorously (as I was able to do in 4.8). I was not able to fix the problem. I saw this forum and tried playing with the webshield. I tried turning webshield off, and didn’t see any immediate effect (so I turned it back on). I then tried disabling the “Scan http traffic” option. No immediate effect, but in less than 5 min, my newsgroup download speed has returned to normal levels.
I had checked task manager to see if there was high CPU usage, and there wasn’t anything there indicating this. Avast was using about 4-8% CPU. Total CPU usage was about 15%, so lots of room to go.
It seems the HTTP traffic scanning option does indeed slow things down. I’m using Chrome as my browser which is fast even on slow connections, so maybe that’s why I didn’t see a big change.
BTW, this is with Avast 5.0.462
Sorry for being late. No, I never used u Torrent or any other P2P. As stated, I find the same slowdown in surfing with WebGuard of Avira than WebShield of AVAST 5. I’m confused as AVIRA works fine on my PC whereas AVAST 5 I was forced to uninstall rapidly for strange behavior (I always use MAXIMUM protection, though!). I’m even more confused when I read reports by others that your software is among the best and works fine ON THEIR computer. ??? It’s sure frustrating for me as I used AVAST since ever (1997). I will try to install it again when ever I get more time. Sorry… Hope I could help more. Thank you! 
I use utorrent and Avast 5 with no issues, for browsing I use Opera 10.5 which works quite well in fact, very minimal impact with web shield on.
Well, i have experienced in some rare ocations, when downloading a file, it just finish before it’s fully downloaded, i don’t know if it’s the web shield. But it’s very rare. The last time i did experienced that issue was when downloading avast 5 free 5.0.462 from avast site. And it just stoped at 5 mb of 43.8 mb. And that happens rarely, but it’s not limited to avast site, i have seen that behaviour in download.com, during some ftp sessions, and when opening some sites like minijuegostop.com.mx, whit this site, sometimes happens that the games don’t load, and with a refresh they get loaded. Now you mention it, it didn’t happened for me with previous build, just with 5.0.462. But it’s rarely.
Hi. I upgraded from v4.8 to 5.0 yesterday and was virtually unable to connect to the internet afterwards. I disabled the Web Shield this morning and browsing is back to normal. Unchecking the “Scan web (HTTP) traffic” box did NOT fix the problem.
Most likely, a firewall is blocking AvastSvc.exe process from accessing the Internet then…
My experience with Avast 4.8 and 5.0 have learned me that the slowdown of web surfing only occurs with Flash based speed tests in combination with processor capacity (a faster computer suffers less from the slowdown). Java based tests (www.numion.com) seem not be affected (or less). Normal downloading of files does not suffer a slowdown on my computers. Anyway, unchecking Intelligent Stream Scanning almost always speed up the Flash based speed tests.
Cor
I’m experiencing slow web surfing (Firefox 3.6) and bandwidth problems (most of them with Skype 4.2.0.155) with AIS 5.0.462 on Amd Phenom II X4 3ghz system; lan Adapter is an onboard Marvell Yukon Chipset 88E8056 usign Marvel driver 11.23.3.3; OS is Vista X64 Ultimate edition.
About the Skype problem, you may know that Skype can show call parameters during a phone call (skype-to-skype phone call). With Webshield activated, I observe an high percentage of outgoing packet loss (variable to 5 from 15%). Deactivating Web Shield, packet loss is quite normal (from 0 to 2%).
I made this test several times on my 4mbit ADSL connection; I suspect that this packet loosing is due to the Web Shield, in particular I think that Web Shield introduces an higher latency time that is too high for udp connections.
About the slow web navigation, I can experience in Firefox some strange slowdown randomly with different target pages. Flow is normal deactivating web shields.
I’ve got Windows Firewall service deactivated by default on my system and I’m mostly using my PC in power save mode (Phenom II clocked at 800mhz instead of 3ghz). Dpc Latency checker states 120 nu-sec latency time during idle.
Please let me know if you need more detailed information or tests.
Simon
I don’t seem to notice too much of a difference with anything from webshield logically slowing down my internet.
I ran 5 test in this order.
Web Shield Fully Running
http://www.speedtest.net/result/748251818.png
Web Shield Completely Off
http://www.speedtest.net/result/748252664.png
Web Shield Fully Running
http://www.speedtest.net/result/748253229.png
Scan Web (HTTP) Traffic unchecked
http://www.speedtest.net/result/748254157.png
Web Shield Fully Running
http://www.speedtest.net/result/748258027.png
It could mean something or maybe not. I’m not sure. The results are inconsistent and I know Comcast can be a junk service sometimes.
I’m running an Intel Cor2 Duo T8300 @ 2.4GHz, 4.00GB RAM, Windows 7 Home Premium
There is a thread in the German Avast Forum as well about this. There one user stated (and it was confirmed by another one), that switching off the “Intelligent Stream Scans” (under the advanced options of the webshield) had solved their problem - speed back to normal.
It is nevertheless strange to see the apparently different results on the various systems. On my system I can not measure any speed differences besides normal tolerances, neither any significant CPU load. Avast works absolutely fine here for me - hardy recognizable that there is something in the background monitoring all my traffic, files etc.
I don’t think so. I’m using Online Armor firewall and I have Alwil software excluded.