Avast & Out Post Pro 2.7

General Topics
1

I’m writing becos recently I had a problem and I suspect it was my fw, Out Post Pro 2.7

This what I have :Pentium 4 2.4Ghz/ 768Mb Ram/ WinXP Pro SP2/ Avast 4.6.691 Home/ Outpost Pro 2.7/ Firefox 1.0.4/ OE6/ Ad-aware/ Spyware Blaster/ HiJackThis/MSAS/SpyBot/CCleaner/CWShredder/A2/Ewido

The problem was: my computer just dies off. It happened twice, then later from 3 rd attempt onwards, when I switch on my pc, it cannot make it to windows, it shuts off b4 that. A tech checked and did something. It worked , then it didn’t work again, but later I tried again, it worked but I noticed my Out Post Pro 2.7 was disabled and my pc doesn’t shut off suddenly. Everytime I switch on , I see my OP was disabled and my pc doesn’t shut off anymore.

So I suspect that OP is clashing or something with Avast, what do you think?

How can I avoid this problem in the future. It was a real disastrous experience for me and I don’t want it to repeat again.

Right now I’m using windows firewall, behind D-Link router.Leak test says , penetrated.

Appreciate your reply.

Thanks :slight_smile:

2

Firstly let me say I have had no real problems with Outpost Pro (or the free version previously) and avast! they both seem to work well together.

I did have one issue when outpost pro didn’t ask permission when the new web shield was introduced in avast (it just blocked it), but my only real grievance with outpost is is accesses between 450 and 500 files on boot and because of this avast scans them and this slows the boot down. I still have an outstanding Outpost Pro support ticket for this issue.

Without knowing what the tech (Outpost or another hardware or software tech, etc?) said/did to resolve it is hard to know the potential cause as there is insufficient information to indicate a specific problem.

When you say the computer just dies off (crash, blue screen, black screen {usually hardware}, freeze, what), what exactly happened, what were you doing and were there any error messages? This may well be something totally unrelated to either outpost or avast!

Were there any entries in the windows event logs for when outpost was disabled, if so what? If it were a crash there should also be mini dumps which could help the technical people but not very helpful to you or me.

The leak test results are accurate as windows XP’s firewall only provides inbound protection (and you have that covered if your route is also a firewall), you still need something to provide outbound protection.

If your firewall was disabled by a malicious attack to allow for outbound internet traffic, I would have hoped that your security applications would have noticed something running (hijackthis would probably be the best analysis tool). So it is more likely to be because, if you enable the windows XP firewall it will disable the outpost pro firewall I have tried this before and the two can’t run together. Disable the Windows firewall and enable outpost again.

3

OP works with avast! without trouble.
Problems could be: bad installation of OP (earlier versions, the presence of free then upgrade to Pro version, etc.), Windows firewall should be deactivated to install OP correctly (generally, OP disables it automatically).
Maybe you can uninstall avast, boot and install it again to see if this helps…

4

I got a tech to check my pc last Friday. After checking, he knows, what I meant shutting off in seconds after switching on. There was no more power on pc, the screen goes off, with the monitor light blinking

So, he went to safe mode, but the computer didn’t shut off and still working. He did some other checking with my computer, which I don’t know. I know he went to “msconfig” & saw something alien, that is some small “boxes” character. After removing the boxes the computer can work as usual. But the “boxes” came back again when he checked msconfig. His suspicion & he repeated that it is only a guess, that it could be a worm. He needs more through checking he said. The mobo looks OK by visual inspection. He doesn’t suspect power supply problem.

After he left, I restarted the computer …same thing happened again. But I restarted again the comp and it worked well without shuting off. At that time, I noted my OP was disabled and my comp is still working without shutting off by itself. I did a scan with ewido, nothing found.

Next day, I switched on the comp, still working properly, no shutting off in seconds. Again I noted my fw was disabled.

I have removed OP, so can’t enable OP unless I reinstall. BTW , I never run 2 firewalls together. FYI, the fans are working.
I’ve got 3x256 MB Kingston RAM. Out of which 2x256 MB RAM was installed 3 weeks ago. No problem on RAM so far. No beeps , no other sounds, no error message.

I never used OP free version, only the pro version. I don’t see any problem with avast. So I don’t see the need to uninstall & reinstall.

I would like to add this info, which further streghtens my suspicion with OP as the problem( at least in my pc). About 2-3 weeks ago my OP was taking 95-100 % of the resources, which is abnormal, normally it works within 3-5%. I feel something not right , after reinstalling, the problem disappeared. I beginning to wonder my OP is corrupted?

Till today, I’m not having any of this problem anymore, but I need a software fw, altho I have a hardware fw , but I feel incomplete :frowning:

P/S - I run Avast / Ad-aware/ Spyware Blaster /MSAS /SpyBot /CCleaner/CWShredder/A2/Ewido every 2 days, if not everyday.

5

It’s not a matter of problem, but conflic…
It’s just a suggestion to test.
Other possibility, is disabling WebShield from avast! and see what you get.

What do you mean? That everything is right?
Did you run, anytime, a Registry Cleaner…? Maybe it’s the trouble…

6

Sorry I mean no offence. I don’t have OP, just uninstalled it.

What do you mean? That everything is right?
Did you run, anytime, a Registry Cleaner…? Maybe it’s the trouble…

Didn’t mean to confuse you, this was an problem I had some time back , so I thought I let you know about it, so that you can have an idea of a possible problem that caused my pc to power off recently. FYI, the recent problem occured when I was surfing the net. I didn’t use any registry cleaners lately during the time this recent problem occured.

To be honest, since everything is going well now. I’m actually thinking whether to reinstall OP and try out your suggestions or just install ZA free and give it a try with avast!

7

Outpost Pro 2.7 has lots of bells and whistles (plug-ins) now, ad blockers, content blockers, etc. etc. I only use the Ads, Attach Detection and DNS Cache the rest are disabled/stopped. There is also one new IE Toolbar interface for OP, since I rarely if ever use IE, I have not enabled this.
I think Outpost Pro is getting too integrated/complex and may cause conflict with other products doing the same or similar tasks because of this.

8
9

On second thought, can you kindly advise me your complete current OP 2.7 settings, so that I apply on my pc and see if everything will continue to work well like yours.

Please advise in layman terms .Thanks a lot. :slight_smile:

10

There really are too many individual settings to list, but for the majority I have left them at the default settings, only enabling the Ads, Attack Detection and DNS Cache plug-ins. I have also disabled the OP Browser Integration for IE.

11

Oh, it won’t be so easy… I think you can use the Automatic settings (while installing) and then the ‘Allow most’ mode.
You’ll be prompted for only the most important changes.
Into the Applications tab of settings you’ll see the ‘Component’ buttom. You can disable it (although it’s not recomended) to get less pop-up windows in your screen.
I see no other way to ‘share’ settings… depends on you, your programs, your system, etc.
Anyway, the automatic and default ones are very good to start.