Dialup users should run away from Avast, and use anything else!

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

If your on Dialup, perhaps you should try using anything else for your antivirus needs.

I’ve carefully gone through Avast’s settings, and still Avast HOGS the net.
Unlike hi speed users, All DUN users know about the connection bottleneck.
As soon as you connect EVERYTHING on your PC thinks it has the right to be on the net 1st.

So I used Comodo Firewall to block everything except Avast.
I dial up, and nothing happens.
Once I start any web browser (FireFox, Chrome, Opera, or ie) then everything tries to jump out onto the net.
So I started Firefox and then promptly closed it.
It comes as no surprise to me, that the Firewall only showed Avast is still on the net, and downloading something…

After 10 minutes avast was still downloading something and it had about 5.6MB of it.
I know that usually whatever the mystery avast download is, it often gets dropped after 15MB = 40 minutes or so.
I’ve seen it go as high as 31MB then get dropped, and a few minutes later Avast would retry…

This occurs on Avast 7.x Free on Win7 Home and WinXP Pro.
And it still happens even with the following DUN friendly settings in Avast…

Top right side of avast UI under Settings:

Updates:
Engine and Virus Definitions = Manual Update
Program = Manual Update
Update Parameter = I only connect to the internet using a dial up modem
Auto-update every: = 240000 minutes

Cloud Services:
Reputation Services = disabled
Streaming Updates = disabled

Popups:
Security Reports = disabled

Silent/Gaming Mode:
Silent/Gaming Mode = disabled

Account:
(Not connected with any Avast! account.)
Report program status to the avast! account = disabled
Update frequency: = 600000 minutes

Community
participate in the avast! community = disabled
Show avast! recommendation features = disabled
Show social networking features = disabled

Maintenance:
Enable displaying the alerts = disabled

Left side of avast UI under Additional Protection → Browser Protection
Click Settings Button → WebRep = disabled
Click Settings Button → SiteCorrect = disabled

Current Solution:
So instead of having a useless Dialup connection and waiting for Avast to fail after 20 to 50 minutes.
I connect to the net, start web browser, see the rush to the net (via Comodo icon on Win7) and unplug the DUN USB modem.
I soon get a Redial message box and I reconnect the USB modem, wait 2 seconds then click redial.
The web browser didn’t get to see the home page and (under firefox) I get a Try again button that I now click and can surf the net without being hassled while connected.

Solution #2:
Using Comodo Firewall, I put any Avast IP address ranges I could find out about (WhoIs) into Comodo’s Blocked Zones list.
As expected there was a short 2 minute or less rush to the net, mostly Adobe Flash (I don’t use Adobe PDF Reader).
After that, Comodo showed no heavy traffic, just the occasional port 53 DNS query, and any other traffic was expected and reasonably light.
The only problem with Solution #2 is that Avast is totally blocked from the net, and to update I had to click through Comodo to delete those zones, then after updating I have to retype those addresses into comodo’s blocked zones again…

Also I should point out that on Dialup Avast update usually fails, often at 30MB = 45 minutes, and I often must try again and again and again.
(NO it’s not the DUN connection, because even Microsoft Windows updates will download unattended overnight with no problems, so it is an Avast client or server setting.)
Anyways, this half dozen retries or more for DUN users likely weighs noticeably on Avast’s update servers bandwidth.

SUGGESTION:
I suggest avast programmers make this mystery download a bit more transparent.
Even Microsoft Windows behaves itself for DUN users, and we’re talking eye-spy Microsoft here!!!
I would Highly recommend avast builds a download manager similar to what’s already built in web-browsers like Firefox
When your servers drop the connection the DL manager can start downloading again from where it left off after a few minutes, or even a few days later.
Otherwise, it just (currently) retries the entire DL, and avast does pay for it server-side in bandwidth traffic and connections $$$.

None of what I wrote here is new, all this has been written by others whom often have less skill or knowledge and posted on other (non-avast) forums through out the net.
Because I’ve been asked by two other people over the past month about what to use, I thought it should be written down for other potential DUN users.

PS. Don’t be a troll and tell me to update to ADSL/Cable/FiberOptics/MicrowaveTransmitter/StarTrek-Communicator/etc.,
Well, unless you have money to burn and your offering to pay the installation…

PSS. Hopefully, this post is made sticky, or avast programmers smarten the Heck Up. Regardless I probably won’t bother revisiting this post.

2

I just installed Avast last night on my home PC. I have a dial up connection myself, but I’ve not noticed any issues with updating so far :-\ In fact, the cloud services work for me too amazingly (I have both enabled). I let the virus/engine updates automatically and so far the updates have been small and fast, for me anyway. My dial up connection speed is currently at it’s best (45.2kbps). The browsing experience doesn’t seem too bad with Avast running either. For me personally, things are working well at present and I hope that continues 8)

3

There should never be an Avast update of 30 mb unless it’s trying to update the entire program from an older version. The definition updates are very small and the streaming ones are miniscule in size.

4

I really wasn’t going to respond to this topic as I honestly don’t know if the OP actually wants help or just to rant:

PSS. Hopefully, this post is made sticky, or avast programmers smarten the Heck Up. [b]Regardless I probably won't bother revisiting this post.[/b]

If you do want help in trying to resolve this just ask.

For over six and a half years of my eight and a half years of using avast I was a dial-up user. The only hassle was when I first downloaded the program, took a long time but no problem getting it. After that the virus definitions were incremental measured in KBs not MBs.

From then on I did manual program updates from within the program as that greatly reduced the download size from the full installation file.

Whilst being on dial-up is a pain in the rear it is still a workable option with avast. Downloading another AV on dial-up is no less of a pain and the same would be true of downloading the full virus database rather than doing an incremental update.

5

I agree with David; while I’m currently on DSL, I never had problems with avast hogging the connection in all the years I was on dialup. The one possible exception is if you haven’t done any updates in ages (something on the order of a month rings a bell), in which case avast will download the whole database (currently somewhere around 80 MB) rather than a whole pile of incrementals.

6

I am using Avast Internet security with windows 8 pro and with dial up. There is no problem so far, keeping in mind my laptop is 4-year old,. As I have switched from Kaspersky to Avast .I still have more than 200-day remaining with Kaspersky. I tried Quick Heal,Norton,K7, Bit defender,Escan,Eset etc. before purchasing Avast.

7

i hope you run removal tools for all those previous used av so any conflicting files are gone
if not, you find them here. http://singularlabs.com/uninstallers/security-software/

8

Sounds like he has a problem that’s Comodo related.
Since he’s not returning, we’ll never know.

9

Yep, plus he crippled avast! (with his settings) anyway.

10

[quote author=Pondus link=topic=111358.msg875163#msg875163 date=1355661005]

Thanks for your concern, I have run removal tools+ registry cleaner+ manual removal of registry entry. The hard to go away object is bit defender network filter driver which I had to delete from system32 folder.

11

Unfortunately the removal tools and registry cleaners aren’t the same thing. At this point it’s probably hard to tell what else has been removed or not removed.

12

+1
He definitely did. He might just as well not have it at all set up like he said.