I have a problem. VISTA64 Bit Home premium, IE8,Firefox 3 and Safari Beta 4 as the browsers,AVAST home 4.8
From time to time on clicking on a link the browser just seems to hang. The small VISTA circle just keeps doing its thing and the page never loads. So I Shut down the browser and re start it. Now I am locked the Browser just sits there trying to connect to my homepage.
This occurs with all 3 Browsers.
The solution is to Exit the browser, turn of AVAST ON Access protection. Re start the browser which then works quite happily. I then shut down the browser and re activate AVAST On access protection and re start the browser. things are back to normal until the next time it happens. Its random but I get about 3 times a day.
Windows Firewall is Off. I also run Zonealarm Pro,Spybot SD and Spyware blaster. In testing I have turned all of these off so just AVAST running and the problem is there. Shutdown Avast, Open the browser and all is good. I then re-enable ZA,Spybot,Spyware blaster and AVAST and then carry on browsing … till the next event
Remove avast entries from ZA programs allowed to connect.
Boot.
Allow avast again. Sometimes this is due to glitches on ZA handling the program entries.
Into the firewall settings, the following programs should be allowed to connect:
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashWebSv.exe (avast! Web Scanner)
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashMaiSv.exe (avast! e-Mail Scanner Service)
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\Setup\avast.setup (avast! Update executable). This is a temporary file that just appears when an update (check) is about to launch, and disappears again afterwards.
Don’t need rights to connect:
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\aswUpdSv.exe (avast! Update Service)
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashServ.exe (avast! antivirus service). Although, ashServ.exe sends ping packets to find out if the Internet connection is alive. You can turn this off by checking the “My computer is permanently connected to the Internet” box in the avast Program Settings > Update (Connections) page.
Looking through my ZA settings that is exactly how it is set up. The problem is still there.
In other threads I read about an AVAST.ini Zome Alarm compatibility value is this appropriate ? Looking in my ini file I cannot see any Zone Alarm values.
The problem with ZA right now is that the free version will install the Pro trial unless the user unchecked the option in the installation of the free version. So the user downloads the free version but end up with a pro trial with all its features and avast shows the ZA Pro compatibility popup.
In this case, answer YES. If you choose NO with the Privacy function of the pro trial installed, youc could experience problems with logons.
Generally, if the question appears and 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 or, if you want to keep this line, set it to 0. 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. In this case, the value ZoneAlarmCompatibility=1 should be at avast4.ini file.
I am using Zone Alarm Pro. Internet Privacy is OFF. i.e. Cookie Control is OFF, Ad blocking is OFF,Mobile Code control is OFF.
Looking in the Avast4.ini there is no mention of ZoneAlarm.
Setting that value to 1 will mean that you have to manually set up your browser/s to use the avast Web Shield proxy. See tutorials, etc. below, you may have to adjust these depending on the browser version.
The web shield is enormously effective against on-line malware and especially hacked sites and they are on the increase, so it really is important to get it working correctly.
But with that ZA setting set to 1 is the web shield even scanning the port 80 http traffic ?
I suspect not, check the web shield detailed view, Last scanned: and Scanned count: fields they would constantly update if the traffic was scanned.
The avast ‘a’ icon would also rotate when web pages are being scanned too.
So if they aren’t being scanned, you need to manually set the browser to use the proxy and if that doesn’t work we are going to need to know exactly how you set it up, e.g. what browser and what you entered.
The AVAST ball spins on every access of a web page. Looking at the web scanner in detailed mode , scanned count is zero.
I have followed the AVAST video guide explicitly. As they show in the video I set it to port 12080, the only difference is I am running IE8.
I note in the video they say port 1280 but all that is visible in their graphic is 2080
Also for what its worth I am running SpybotSD and Spyware Blaster.
That indicates nothing is being scanned, as I suspected.
There is also the insertion of the value ‘localhost’ (without the quotes) required in the input fields.
The correct port is 12080 the video field width isn’t large enough to show all 5 numbers, if watched in detail you will see the numbers being entered, it does actually show 12080 in the graphic before the input. Unfortunately if you miss that you only see the last 4 numbers, placing a 1 in front of the visible 2080 gives the correct port 12080 number (which you say you entered). So I can only assume that you didn’t enter the localhost value ?
I have this mysterious problem too. I use Zone Alarm Pro 8 (with all Avast entries given Super rights and Access and Server rights as found in this forum).
I have edited the Avast INI file to include the ZoneAlarmCompatibility and ModifyVistaSocketAutoTuning parameters set to 1.
I’ve tried using firefox with both the localhost manual proxy setting and direct internet connection setting, but i get the same web access freezing problem.
When the computer has just started up all seems well for maybe 5 mins of surfing (I enabled the setting that shows me what the web server is scanning at the time, so I can see that it’s working). Then it just stops and Firefox can no longer access any http url’s. When I close down Firefox it disappears off the desktop and task bar, but if I run Task Manager it’s still there and End Task refuses to work, as does using pskill.
When it crashes, I go to the Avast Protection Control screen, choose Web Shield and then choose Terminate. The icon goes greyed out, but if I go to the Services console, the “avast! Web Scanner” service stays on “Stopping” until I reboot the computer.
I also have SUPERAntiSpyware installed, but this was installed yesterday and I’ve been having the Avast Web Scanner problem before that, so I know SAS isn’t causing the problem.
I have Yahoo Messenger running and a firefox plugin that checks various mailboxes for new messages ever couple of mins. Some of the URLs that are generated by those things seem fairly long… could the long URLs be a problem with Avast Web Scanner perhaps? (yes, I’m clutching at straws here )
I’ve heard really good things about Avast and want to get it working before I recommend it family and friends… sadly for now I daren’t do that until I know this issue can be fixed somehow.
My symptoms are identical to Mikei, with multiple instances of either Internet explorer evident in the task manager with IE8 supposedly shut down. Task manager cannot stop these instances either.
I have not set ModifyVistaSocketAutoTuning parameters set to 1 as Mike indicates he has done.
At present I have deselected Web scanning in AVAST and Browsing is working as normal but clearly without the protection offered by AVAST (though hopefully covered by SptybotSD and Spywareblaster).
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