Avast and cookies

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hi all,

I made sure I read everthing that could help me before posting, but haven’t found nothing…I had the McAfee Viruscan + ZoneAlarm for quite along time, but after the last OS reinstall (Win2k, updated to SP4) the McAfee produced “spikes” of CPU utilizations which lasted for 2-3 seconds every 30-45 minutes, locking the machine iduring those seconds, so I installed Avast, updated it and then unistalled the McAfee antivirus.
I read everything about Avast + Zone Alarm, set everything as I read but I still have a problem (well, the only problem): forum cookies. I made sure that Mozilla 1.7.7 and ZoneAlarm 5.5.094.000 (speaking about dot releases) will accept whatever cookie from forums, but apparently it didn’t worked out…basically, I visit the forum main page (and I’m logged in) but when I clikc on a thread I found myself logged out and have to log in again. I never had this problem before, so I suspect it’s something with Avast Home…any suggestion?

2

Avast has nothing to do with your cookies

It could be 1) cookie settings in IE
2) cookie settings in Mozilla 1.7.7
3) cookie settings in Zonealarm

I to was experiencing this problem I found that setting in the above mentioned programs

need to adjusted to suit. I have cookie protection in IE off privacy settings in ZA off, have a

look at your browser cookie setting and adjust to suit. Having said that I scan for tracking

cookies regularly using Ad-aware, Spybot( gives you the option on safe cookies to keep)

The most obtrusive problem was being caused by ZA. turn off privacy settings fixed this for me

3

Check this link http://www.avast.com/eng/webshield_issues.html

avast! Web Shield compatibility dialogue - Install/Update Question - YES or NO

If you are using ZoneAlarm Free you should click NO, because privacy features are not present in ZoneAlarm Free this will not turn off webshield transparent mode proxy.
Use a text editor and edit the avast4.ini file, the default installation location is C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\avast4.ini (I would advise you copy avast4.ini before editing it, just in case).
Locate the line containing ZoneAlarmCompatibility= and delete that line. Save the edited avast4.ini file.

If you are using ZoneAlarm Pro and Privacy Control in ZoneAlarm is set to High and if you click YES in avast comptability dialog box the transparent mode proxy in webshield will be turned off you have to manually configure browser to access internet. To manually configure your browser watch instructional video

For IE - broadband users: - Tutorial - Web Shield Proxy Set-up for IE
For IE - dialup users - Tutorial - Web Shield Proxy Set-up for IE (Dial-up)
For Firefox users - Tutorial - Web Shield Proxy Set-up for Firefox

4

I do have ZoneAlarm Pro and when I follow this procedure I cannot connect to two specific devices.

  1. I have a control system that serves web pages, this in on my local network as 192.168.1.100. When configured as a proxy with loopback address and port 12080, the browser cannot connect to the page. If I remove the loopback proxy and set the connection to Autodetect it works fine.

  2. Exactly the same issue with my office’s outlook exchange server connection from my house. I get cannot open page error with the loopback proxy enabled.

If I set privacy control to off in ZoneAlarm does webshield work without having to do a loopback proxy?

Thanks for the help!

5

Yes, this should work without a problem. You can control your cookies directly in Internet Explorer or Mozilla browsers. Also you can check this FAQ for instructions how to setup WebShield as a localproxy and direct it to use some other “upstream” proxy on your network.

http://www.avast.com/eng/webshield_issues.html#idt_6870

6

I use other apps that do a better job for these things anyway.

Thanks for the reply and the info!

Matt