Configuration Help

I downloaded and installed Avast to compare to AntiVir. I noticed that Avast has more processes running than AntiVir and is using more memory. It also has two system tray icons. What components do I not really need to install so that I can get good virus protection without all the processes and the aditional icon?

Thanks.

You can merge the two icons together.

Right mouse click on the blue ball with the “i” on it… youlll see an option there to merge it with the other, “merge with main avast icon” leaving you with one

As far as which components goes, that one is up to you. If you have no need for protection for P2P, or Instant Messaging for instance you can unistall those.

Internet Mail, Webshield, Netshield, Standard Shield are all ones you should probably keep… but its also up to you, your preferences.

Thanks for the info on merging the two icons.

A few questions…

  1. What is p2p?
  2. If my internet mail account is with Hotmail, Hotmail scans all mail with their virus protection. Enabling it on my PC is just redundant correct?
  3. How does Webshield and Netshield differ? If my resident Standard Shield is running, it should stop all viruses coming from the web and/or net once they hit my PC right?

Thanks again.

Hi!

  1. P2P stands for peer to peer. It allows u to download files from other users instead of websites.
  2. If u r using hotmail, no need to enable the internet mail provider cuz its only meant for outlook and other email clients.
  3. Webshield scans all the HTTP traffic before your browser displays it. (VERY useful → DONT disable it!). Netshield is a kind of a tiny firewall. If u r using the built it XP firewall or r using some other firewall, u can disable it. Otherwise leave it enabled!

Hope this clarifies ur doubts!

Maybe… If you can trust in Hotmail scan…
Hotmail/Yahoo is not a pop3 email service (unless you pay for pop service), it is web based (so the Internet Mail provider doesn’t directly protect it). Web based email is simply your email being viewed in the same way you browser the internet. The pages (that display your email) are downloaded into your Temporary Internet folder, just like regular web pages and displayed on your browser screen.

The Standard Shield will scan your files (as they are downloaded into your Temporary Internet folder) when sensitivity is set to High. You can round this ‘problem’ using 3rd party applications to download the Hotmail messages through the pop3 server (PopHotmail, for instance).

Network Shield is a protection against known Internet worms/attacks. It analyses all network traffic and scans it for malicious contents. It can be also taken as a lightweight firewall (or more precisely, an IDS (Intrusion Detection System). Network Shield protects you from internet worms that spread themselves via various security holes in your system. Typicaly these kind of viruses don’t infect files but instead they attack running processes on your PC (either Windows components or some server programs like SQL Server, IIS etc.). These kind of attacks are not easily catched by ordinary antivirus during file or mail scanning. It is not a duplicate work with Standard Shield.

Web Shield analyses all traffic passing thru a HTTP connection (between your browser and an Internet server). This includes scripts embedded in HTML pages. Just setting the Standard Shield to High sensitivity (resident filesystem scanner) won’t solve… It will be too late. Vlk wrote in Wilders forum:
The thing is, a HUGE number of today’s malware takes advantage of various exploits in web browsers (most notably, IE). The same applies to nuisance like dialers, spyware etc. In such a case, howevers, scanning of network streams (http streams in case of Web Scan-ners - i.e. avast’s WebShield or Nod’s IMON) is the only way to prevent the infection. The filesystem based scanner will simply act too late…

There are good explanation of these in the avast help file, windows start, all programs, avast anti-virus, help or right click the avast icon, select Start avast Antivirus, from the Simple User Interface, menu, help.

Thanks for help. I understand this better now. Why can’t all these processes be in one program? That way there will be only one process running in Task Manager instead of many. There can still be an option to enable\disable a feature but there will only be one process.

One process running, one problem or conflict/crash all dead.

Not to mention, if you only have one process you have to make a decision what should go in it, not everyone uses P2P, IM, etc. and it would be a much larger process. I only have 4 providers in use.

Having all the processes lumped into on wouldn’t really reduce the overhead only reduce the number in the task manager. Some people also terminate some providers/task manager processes for gaming, etc. that would be impossible to do with just one task manager process for everything.

Technical,

Do you think I need Netshield if I have Windows XP SP2 Firewall enabled? Also, If I’m going to start using Outlook Express with Gmail, I should disable the Outlook/Exchange protection and enable Internet mail right?

Thanks.

David,

I never thought of the fact that with one process, it could be attacked and then there goes everything. Thanks.

Do you think I need Netshield if I have Windows XP SP2 Firewall enabled? Also, If I'm going to start using Outlook Express with Gmail, I should disable the Outlook/Exchange protection and enable Internet mail right?

The overhead for Net Shield is minimal so not worth leaving disabled and is a little different to a firewall.

Yes you need the Internet Mail provider for Outlook Express. You will however, need to use stunnel to use the SSL for Gmail as avast doesn’t support SSL. Some information about this here http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=10428.0

You can terminate it or better still you can get rid of it. From Add Remove programs click on avast anti-virus and click the Change/Remove button, from the next window select Change and untick the provides you don’t require.

I forgot to mention, I have a Motorola Gateway with the Firewall policy set to HIGH. With this, would it be okay to disable webshield and netshield? Thanks again.

David,

Do I still need to use stunnel with Gmail and Outlook Express if I am using Windows XP SP2? I thought I read that it is not necessary on an NT based system, just the earlier ones. Thanks.

Try it and see, you will find without stunnel, avast can’t work with SSL Gmail connections and that doesn’t matter if you are using XP or not.

You are mixing up the way avast interacts transparently (without having to set account servers to local proxy) with your email program for pop3, smtp and imap ports.

SSL doesn’t use these ports and because it is encrypted avast can’t scan it, so stunnel acts as means to first have avast scan the email before it is encrypted.

I personally don’t use Gmail or Stunnel so the limit of my experience is what I have gained in these forums, which is why I gave the other link.

Thanks David!