Why does avast need Internet Explorer for proper function? I read this while instaling avast on my friend’s machine in setup information. How can uninstaling IE with xp setup affect avast’s work?
You can’t uninstall IE (without a huge amount of effort) it is an integral part of your OS in XP.
The avast Help files (.chm) are viewed using IE in common other help files. But, aside from that avast doesn’t use IE for any AV function.
Ok, Thanks. It seemed strange to me that avast is using IE, when I read it in setup.
Yes, it’s used in a few internal functions to display something.
Appart from the help files (as DavidR said), it’s also used e.g. in iNews display, or in the main view of the Enhanced User Interface. All of these based on HTML files - which are displayed using the IE component.
I just noticed one of those functions, the iNews today on the SC Awards 2007 and it got me thinking again (bad I know).
Why can’t avast use the default browser when you click on links from these iNews pop-ups and many other url links within avast, about avast!, etc. ?
There is noting more infuriating than whilst using Firefox or another browser, you click the link for more information and IE pops-up.
Hmm, the links in “About avast!” also open IE? I thought they shouldn’t…
I just tried it the link at the bottom of the page to avast.com opens IE.
The link in the Simple User Interface does use the default browser though.
Now I understand what it uses it for, because I got the news about SC 2007. And the link with ‘‘more info’’ opens in IE, but the link in simple interface opens in firefox (my default). It would really be much better for all the links to open in something else than IE. I really dont like it!
Before anyone asks avast to “just invoke the system default browser” … a lesson I learned in the last few days.
I just spent a couple of days debugging with one of the folks I support an interesting issue.
He is using an open source imaging software. Its helpfiles are all .html files and installed as part of the package. The product says that the helpfiles will be opened using the default system browser. In his case when he clicked on “Help” nothing happened but if explicitly clicked on one of the helpfiles it opened in his default browser. The same problem had been reported by a few other users in the software’s forum.
I installed the product on my system to test it - I clicked on the “Help” button and it opened the helpfiles in my default browser. Since the code is open source I was able to look at it and it was doing nothing wrong in trying to invoke the default browser to display the helpfiles.
After considerable research we found that the problem is related to what I will describe as a “flaw” in Windows.
Many of us have installed a piece of software only to find that it has (often without asking) inserted itself into the file context menu … just as avast does with the individual file scan function. However, not all software is as well written as avast and poorly written software with a context menu intercept can jump in with a “let me do it” and supplant the default browser. In this case the context menu intercept was for some flat bed scanner software, it did not know how to handle the html file and just exited.
It required some registry surgery to remove it in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and let the default browser get a look in and is certainly not something your average user could debug or easily fix.