Avast ist constantly downloading (something)

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hi there,

I only thought Microsoft does not understand that background downloads are not suitable for about 70% of the countries world-wide, i.e. those that do not know what an uncapped internet connection ist. I live in one of those and question why “Avast Service” is downloading up to 100 MB per day in the background. If it is updating a virus database or so, it should be in the kb-area.

Is there a way to block these major downloads happening through Avast service? (I mean other than uninstalling Avast and looking for a competitor?.

Many thanks
C

2

Avast acts like a local proxy, so that’s totally normal and explains the (misleading) stats.

3

Nope, it is “outside” traffic, not “local” traffic I am talking about, i.e. it is traffic/download from the Internet.

4
  • Which Avast…? (Free/Pro/IS/Premier)
  • Which version…?
  • OS…? (32/64 Bit…? - which SP/Build…?)
  • Other security related software installed…?
  • Which AV(s) did you use before Avast…?
5

First mistake you make is saying data traffic = downloading things.
Although they are related, they are not exactly the same.

A few kb per day for detection (VPS) updates?
If that was true, avast would be doing a real bad job.
About 400.000 new malware samples are found every day !
Try to put that in just a few Kb’s.
Even with “ultra compression” enabled in archivers like 7-zip, zip, rar, arj etc you will not get a file with new detections that small.

But other than just checking/downloading the VPS (streaming updates), avast is doing a lot more online.
Amongst them (not limited to and depending on what you have installed and enabled/disabled in the settings) are the Behavior shield, email scanning, web shield, software updater.

And you are forgetting there is always a “overhead” when it comes to data traffic.
e.g. You want to download the eicar test file.
The file is 68 bytes, but you will use more than just 68 bytes to get it.
You have to visit a download location, sending request to start the download etc.
Total it can be you used 1Kb of data traffic to get the 68 byte file.

And you are forgetting that avast with many things act as “man in the middle”. (As Asyn also said)
That means that it only seems as avast is creating the traffic while it is actually your email client, browser and such

If you really want to see how much data traffic avast itself is causing, you will need to monitor every application/file on your system and record the traffic that it creates before avast picks it up to scan/check it.
You will need to record the traffic the avast processes are causing as well as the total traffic.

You are also wrong about the data traffic limit.
Unlimited data traffic is available on the entire planet and even in space.
Sure in some places you will have to pay more then in others, but it is there.

6

Thanks, uninstalled it. None of the other free solutions I tested so far downloads more than about 1 MB per day… Avira, AVG etc.

7

avg = avast
https://blog.avast.com/avast-and-avg-become-one

And as I said it is not solely downloading, it is data traffic.

8

Eddy you need to reread chtrede’s post.

It is the other solutions that are only downloading 1MB a day.

Though I can’t see how AVG (a.k.a. avast) is only downloading 1MB a day unless it is an older version.

9

set updates to manual (not recommended).
does switching to metered connection will cover all applications including avast?

10

Why then would you think that avast would have it as an option, it is up to users to decide on what ‘they’ want for ‘their’ system/s

No because it is a windows 10 option for windows update only.