Hi, I just purchased Internet Security for my machines as I’ve been very impressed with Avasts overall performance and security so decided to start having a poke around.
Now I noticed one thing under the performance tab on my full scan settings…
Scan priority is set to high, thats fine. But “Store data about scanned files in persistent cache, this may slow your scans down etc…” is ticked, again thats fine, what puzzles me is “Speed up scanning by using persistent cache” ISN’T ticked…
scratches his head
So I’m generating a cache but not using it? Is there any particular reason WHY my full scan isnt taking advantage of something which would surely improve scan full speed? My only thoughts are that perhaps when doing a full scan it’s better to assume nothing is safe…?
Yes I spotted that already but it’s still unclear why if ticking this box magically improves scan speeds without impacting on detection rates isn’t on by default, it just seems odd and makes me suspect Avast arent 100% confident in it yet in which case I wont be ticking it.
Well for me there is no downside and I have had the speed up scanning by using the persistent cache, from the first time that it was conceived.
It isn’t a lack of confidence, just that the avast default settings are a balance between performance and protection, etc. So they have to consider the users whose systems might suffer a slowdown as a result. It is nothing to do with confidence in its ability to do as it says.
Personally I thing both should either be on or off, as one without the other doesn’t seem logical.
Use persistent caching - if persistent caching is used, the information about the scanned file is stored in the permanent memory. This means it is not lost after a system restart and it is also not affected by virus definition updates. Consequently, persistent caching is suitable only for files which are guaranteed not to contain any virus infection e.g. operating system files, files signed by trusted publishers, or other files covered by the avast! whitelist. This box is checked by default; if you want all files to be scanned regardless of their trust status, this box should be unchecked.
