I am currently using avast! Free Anti-Virus, and I never payed attention that some of my Real-Time shields never work until I decided to check the Real-Time Shields tab in the window.
The strange thing is that some real-time shields are up and running, while others have an operational status of “UNKNOWN”.
Here is the list of the real-time shields and their statuses, according to avast!
File System Shield --> Unknown
Mail Shield --> Running
Web Shield --> Running
P2P Shield --> Unknown
IM Shield --> Unknown
Network Shield --> Running
Behavior Shield --> Running
Along with that, when I try to click "Start" on a shield with an unknown operation status, I get a pop-up saying:
```
Unable to start the [shield type] Shield! Shield Unreachable.
```
How and why is this unreachable? I have no viruses or malware for I scanned my local drives thoroughly using avast!.
My System Specifications:
OS : Windows XP Service Pack 3
CPU : AMD Athlon 3400+ 64 Processor
RAM : 1.0 GB DDR
General Manufacturer : HP Media Center PC m1295c
Other Security Systems Installed:
-1- Norton Anti-Virus (de-activated and disabled)
-2- Norton Personal Firewall 2004 (active)
-3- avast! Free Anti-Virus 5.0.545 , Registered to Software
I hope I can get a response as soon as possible with as much details you can provide. Thank you so much for reading my concern
Might be your Norton. I had another AV(McAfee) set up w/ Avast! same as you, Firewall enabled, rest off/disabled. It did not produce what you mention, but I got system freeze/BSOD’s. Learned hard way, no 2 resident AV’s on a system.
I want to uninstall Norton Anti-Virus since I don’t need it and would like to keep the Firewall. However, Symantec is sneaky and made it so that if you uninstall just one Norton component, all Norton components go with it. I hate it, really, I do, but the problem is that if not Norton Person Firewall, then I would need to have another firewall instead. I already got some recommendations for Comodo, but since this is a family computer I am concerned about, and I don’t know if the main administrator would want the computer to have its firewall replaced.
Since you are not the Admin, did you install Avast! on a user account? That might be a problem if so, security software should always be installed on Admin., as far as I know.
The computer, although shared with the family, all uses one account, that being the administrator’s account. To be more clear, I am just a high school student while the people who mainly approve of any downloads of new programs and the such are my parents. I talked to my parents about this issue, but knowing that Norton Personal Firewall is doing its job as is right now, we are afraid that other programs like Comodo or the such may not provide such security (like blocking IP addresses) to the computer. We want to keep this computer as safe as possible, and we have no clue if Norton could be the cause of this issue.
Commodo seems highly regarded by its users for security, problems with it seem to come from it not playing nice with other programs( which can be as bad as a virus ) or people not liking how high-maintenance it is at first. One thing is for sure, you are LESS safe with 2 AV’s on 1 PC, not more. Decision time for you guys I’m happy with my Avast! IS package(this would solve your firewall decision), but its free program can be layered w/ other security freeware very well.