Erm, where exactly is this stated in the privacy policy?
Submitting data and making a connection are two different things. Besides, making just a DNS query isn’t even a connection to avast! server - it’s just a question to resolve the particular IP.
So, maybe the UI doesn’t behave completely logical (the DNS check could possibly be done only before it’s really needed - and yes, there will always be a possibility of a connection out, e.g. when the license is about the expire - at least I believe so, not 100% sure), and maybe someone checks if it can be improved when time permits - but personally I would hardly call it a bug. It certainly would have a very low priority, sorry.
If all internet options are turned off then there should be NO connections to the internet, why do developers find this so hard to grasp today? Google programs are the worst for it, constantly opening a connection to 1e100.net.
Incidentally, it appears Avast 4.8 behaves a little better, but apparently that’s going to brick itself so that is completely worthless.
Haha, you’re funny.
No, but seriously, those Operating Systems always crash when I use them, hence my next computer will use Kubuntu Linux which will also make my cross-platform C++ and Assembly programming easier.
If there were any option saying “avoid any internet connections”, then yes - but there’s no such option in avast!.
You can configure automatic updates, showing of online content (i.e. behavior of specific actions, not connections)… but nowhere it says that there won’t be any other connection - what’s so hard to grasp about that?
I would then like to ask to please include such option in the next version of avast - and if not possible then I would like to ask for a specific patch that enables just me to disable these things because it is a requirement for the computers that I work on (medical facility).
On a separate (less strict on sensitive data) I checked and the same phenomenon appearead - however I allowed the DNS request to proceed, and avast then downloaded hundreds of kilobytes of data from avast servers (checked from IP address). So it is not just a DNS request - it is an actual connection to avast servers, uploading and downloading unknown (and not requested by the user) data.
So yes, I understand that it is a low priority for avast and most of its users - hence I would like to ask to have just a patch for me so that I can disable it and deploy avast on machines containing sensitive data.
Could it at least be put on the avast team’s todo list (with a low priority)?
AvastUI.exe process (i.e. not AvastSvc.exe), with the settings mentioned before, downloaded hundreds of kilobytes of data? That’s kinda interesting…
Anyway, making “just a patch” requires about the same effort as implementing such an option. So, my advice is - block the process with a firewall; it’s by far the easiest and fastest solution for you.
The way I can see this resolved is to add a secret switch to avast5.ini that would disable this network communication (and you can PM me the switch so that no one else knows about it).
They’re not going to implement this feature just because of you, when an entire community asks for other improvements, more important, sorry but that’s the truth, but i suppose you as a programmer must know this.
Yes, I understand this, but I can still hope… And as a comment aside, as a programmer I can tell you that I have a habit of dealing with all the small things I can think of before I start doing a major improvement/enhancement of my programs - doing the small things first puts my mind away from having to do the big things, however I often learn something new from these small things.
If such a functionality existed, there wouldn’t be anything secret about that switch, everyone could know.
But to implement such a switch, somebody would have to go through all the source code, find all the occurrences where some network connection could be done, change the logic to take that switch into account, decide what to do when the connection is kinda important… and then, somehow, make sure that this is also done for all future features not yet implemented. I am sorry, but I really don’t think this is going to happen. Moving the DNS check elsewhere, maybe… but this, giving a guarantee that it won’t happen… hardly.
I understand you have to follow some policies, but the fact is that the general trend (especially in AV apps, and especially in end-user products) somehow goes the opposite way - moving a lot of functionality on the network (or into the “could”, in the fancy term). And even if not using a “cloud”, virus database definitions should be downloaded as quickly as possible… how do you do the updates when avast! is not allowed to connect?
Furthermore, if there’s a strict rule regarding network connectivity for security reasons, I’d say such a policy should be enforced in a “hard” way (hardware firewall, or simply a disconnected network) - relying on the fact that you manage to persuade all the programs never to connect anywhere… seems a bit weak to me (but it’s just my opinion, and I’m going a bit off topic).
Well maybe you’d think otherwise if you’ll have to handle with a list of known bugs, improvements to made, listento users feedback…and so on, by the way they are preparing now the 6-th version , and logically their attention is mostly in that direction.
I know about the trend with moving towards “the cloud”, and I am horrified from a security-of-sensitive-data point of view.
We are using a hardware firewall and our own DNS server resolution as to prevent as much outgoing data as possible - which is how we detected avast’s behavior.
The main point is to prevent the programs connecting somewhere when not requested by user. Avast is updated by manually invoking the check when sensitive data is unmounted from the computers - the internet connection here is no problem since it was requested by the user. The problem is when the connection happens without being requested by the user - which can also indicate that something suspicious is going on in the background (such as avast becoming infected). Hence it is better to know that the program does not normally produce any internet requests when not wanted - so that you know that something suspicious is happening when you suddenly see a connection without requesting it - I hope you see what I mean.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it looks like the connection is related to avast news service (or something like that), hence it would appear that it needs only a single switch implemented in the program code - and it is something that is unlikely to break other functionality in the program so it is a safe change.
I would just like everyone know that there are still hospitals and hospital labs that are reluctant to put all the patients’ data on the internet for “everyone” to see - hence we need to check the internet functionality of all our programs.
My recollection from when I had AIS is that disabling ‘show remote content in UI’ under basic settings used to prevent the news service (and connections by the UI I seem to recall).
i have the same issue - AVAST UI is connecting to the internet and sending up lots of data - my upload meter shows 40-50 KB/s(yes that’s bytes) peak and i dont like this at all… i complained on another forum and the Avast rep over there said i prob have some malware but MBAM and SAS have never found anything…AVAST all of sudden opens up like 4-5 connection and they all say AVAST UI or AVAST GUI or AVAST SVC, something like that and i want know what’s going on…this is the PAID version of AVAST IS and community “sharing” is OFF…there is no reason to send any volume of data up from my computer…
I would like to ask the people who are experiencing this issue (or who view this as an issue) to comment in this thread to show the developers that not everyone is careless regarding what their computer is sending to the internet.
As far as I understand it avast webshield acts as your internet proxy, and avast mailshield acts as your mail client, so you are bound to get some outbound avastsvc connectivity (and probably same principle for P2P and IM, which I don’t use).
If “show remote content in UI” is disabled and you still get avast news service that would sound to me like a bug (or at least a change in practice since I had AIS).