Avast Internet Security Firewall Network Names next to useless

In the past when someone asked for a free antivirus I would of recommended several option including Avast free. Today I was working on a someone’s computer which I believed had Avast Internet Security installed on it. I believe it had Avast installed since the Avil directory showed up when I did an image of it before wiping Vista off and resinstalling it from scratch. I was told the machine was BSODing on them and now would not boot at all. The machine would only boot up to a black screen with a mouse cursor and then restart. Only after trying to scan it with another antivirus boot CD did I discover that there were over 145 infected files a majority of which were in the Recycle bin. I do not know if Avast put these files into the Recycle bin or what did as I got no information from the computer owner. There were some other infected files of the Trojan_Ransom.Win32.Foreign.BBIP in the windows directory but even after cleaning these files off the computer was still unbootable. How did Avast allow this computer to become this badly infected that I have had to spend several hours reinstalling and restoring their files from an image?

Why does Avast Internet security feel the need to show a network name based on some outdated reverse DNS lookup that it is performing? I say outdated since when it was connected to my network here it referred to it as a School Division north of the city. I am on DSL but have had this static IP for over a month! I feel that when one is on DSL showing such information is next to useless since IP address change frequently on such a network. In fact when dealing with novice end users, showing erroneous information to the end user could instill a sensation that their machine has been compromised and, in my example, is connected to a School network miles away.

I am an avast user not avast team member and don’t use AIS - so I can’t speak from personal experience.

The Alwil Software directory Is/Was for older versions of avast typically avast5 and earlier so is very old and I don’t even know if the AIS product was around at that time.

The Alwil Software directory was also present for avast Home/Free and avast Pro (no firewall on either product):

  • If the user retained either of these products and just did program updates from the user interface, then the historical program folder and registry entries would remain the same.
  • If the user at any point did a clean install of any avast program version later than avast5 then there would be the change to reflect the new company name Avast Software, rather than

So it is somewhat hard to say if it was installed or not based on the name Alwil Software.

I always thought you worked for Avast. ???

Nope, just been around here a long time, just over nine years.

Avast! Team members have ‘avast! team’ in their profile details to the left of posts.

Sorry but I am lost. I do not understand what the "Alwil Software directory " has to do with my question about the Network name that the AIS product is pulling up when it is connected to my LAN here. This is a clean install of Windows Vista followed by a clean install of AIS downloaded from the website.

Because of your comment:

I believe it had Avast installed since the [b]Avil directory[/b] showed up when I did an image of it before wiping Vista off and resinstalling it from scratch. I was told the machine was BSODing on them and now would not boot at all.

I made the assumption that you meant Alwil and not Avil, which is neither avast or Alwil, just closer to Alwil.