Can anyone tell me from experience how reliable the boottime scan is at removing malware that starts when your computer does? Also, does it show something during the scan if a virus is found? What does it look like if it does? Thank you.
Generally it is very reliable as it is running before windows is fully up and running and that too would include most malware. It alerts during the scan if a infection is found and you give the action to take, send to chest being the best (safest) option, see image examples.
For that reason it is very effective and as far as I’m aware avast is the only AV to be able to do this.
Thank you. Could you also tell me what to do with the copied text for the EICAR test file.?
That was just used to generate the alert in the boot-time scan. It is a harmless test file so you know your AV is running and what its alert is.
You don’t have to do anything with it you can import/download the file from http://www.eicar.com/anti_virus_test_file.htm, depending on which you download avast would alert https (secure) communication isn’t monitored by the web shield, but depending on the file type would be detected when saved to your hard disk by the standard shield.
Zip files aren’t scanned by the standard shield by default as zip files are by their nature are inert, you need to extract the files and then you have to run them to be a threat. Long before that happens avast’s Standard Shield should have scanned them and before an executable is run that is scanned.
Web Shield Test - http://www.eicar.org/download/eicar.com clicking this harmles eicar test file link will cause the web shield to alert.