connections to a999sm.avast.com?

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hi Everyone,
With my Norton subscription expireing in a couple of weeks, I thought I’d give Avast a try.

The one one thing I’m noticing is the large number of connection ashwebsv is making to a999sm.avast.com - litterally hundreds of them.

Can somebody tell me what’s up with that?

Here’s a trace:

4 21 ms 17 ms 17 ms sl-gw38-chi-11-3.sprintlink.net [144.228.57.241]
5 20 ms 17 ms 16 ms sl-crs1-chi-0-15-5-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.2.17]
6 18 ms 17 ms 16 ms sl-st20-chi-13-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.3]
7 19 ms 19 ms 17 ms 144.232.19.174
8 25 ms 17 ms 18 ms ae-32-52.ebr2.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.101.62]
9 60 ms 53 ms 53 ms ae-3.ebr2.Atlanta2.Level3.net [4.69.132.74]
10 48 ms 52 ms 53 ms ae-63-60.ebr3.Atlanta2.Level3.net [4.69.138.4]
11 48 ms 50 ms * ae-7.ebr3.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.69.134.21]
12 57 ms 53 ms 54 ms ae-83-83.csw3.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.69.136.162]
13 50 ms 49 ms 49 ms ae-34-89.car4.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.68.19.134]
14 49 ms 49 ms 50 ms THE-PLANET.car4.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.71.122.2]
15 57 ms 57 ms 57 ms et1-1.ibr02.hstntx1.theplanet.com [70.87.253.54]
16 57 ms 57 ms 57 ms et1-3.ibr02.hstntx2.theplanet.com [70.87.253.58]
17 58 ms 58 ms 56 ms po2.car02.hstntx2.theplanet.com [74.55.252.102]
18 55 ms 57 ms 56 ms a999sm.avast.com [75.125.29.226]

Thanks in advance for your replies,
Inflex

2

WebShield just scan the connections started by your browser (or other application).
It works like local proxy: Internet ↔ WebShield ↔ your browser.
So, which program are connecting to Internet (http) at that moment?
avast list of connected sites for update is defined in the file C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\Setup\servers.def.
You can try and download the servers.def file, http://files.avast.com/iavs4x/servers.def