I am an unfortunate soul that must contend with dial-up access over a very old and long wire to the tel-co central office. Getting a connection is sometimes very difficult and time consuming. My ISP points their finger at the Tel-co and the tel-co says everything is within proscribed limits. But I digress. The automatic update function of AVG had some problems that I got around by scheduling a task to connect to the internet a couple of minutes before AVG attempted to update. From reading through this forum it appears that the free version of AVAST! doesn’t provide that sort of functionality. I did find that scans can be scheduled via ashquick.exe. Is there an equivalent program that provides something similar for updates. The way I interpret what I read is that AVAST! attempts an update everytime a dial-up user connects to the internet. I’m afraid that it would introduce more uncertainty into an already tenuous situation. Any suggestions? I guess I could just update manually, but the convenience of having it done automatically is so much better! Any compelling reasons why AVAST! is better than AVG that would sway me to go the manual route?
The avast updates are incremental and measured in KBs not MBs like some other AVs. There are also hundreds of update servers and Home users aren’t restricted in the same way as avg free.
I too am on dial-up and it is almost 5 miles from the exchange and the avast updates generally don’t cause me any problems.
One thing that I do is delay the update check (not a gui function) using the avast4.ini file, I have set that at 10 minutes after connection as this allows me to quickly go online download emails or something quick without avast checking for updates.
You need to edit (using notepad) the [InetWD] section of the C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\Data\avast4.ini file and add the following line (depending on your connection type enter one or other of the Bold lines below):
Dial-up connections, add this line: RASWaitSeconds=300
[InetWD] RASWaitSeconds=300When complete save the changes, avast's self-defence module will ask for confirmation, etc. answer Yes.
The figure is seconds and the above equates to five minutes, you could try that and adjust upwards if required, 600, etc.
Personally I don’t feel the need to schedule on-demand scans as I run a manual scan as a part of my regular weekly system maintenance.
Thanks for your help. I wasn’t sure that I had explained the issue very well but you got right to the heart of the matter. The ability to delay the check for updates is a viable solution. I’m not terribly interested in automatic scans, I just noticed that scheduled scans could be accomplished and was hoping the same was true for updates. I went to my local public library and downloaded the software yesterday. I will remove AVG and install AVAST! soon for some testing…Thanks again.
No problem, glad I could help.
Welcome to the forums.
I think you should also use the avg removal after you unstall it. one of the many things i have learn here in just a short period of time.
Sharon
Good idea, here’s the link:
http://www.avg.com/download-tools
Be sure to choose the right version for you OS (32 or 64bit)
-Scott-