If I’m using the Standard Shield, are any of the other on-access scanners truly required?
In other words, by using only the Standard Shield, am I significantly more vulnerable than if I run all of the on-access scanners?
I realize by using other on-access scanners that malware may be detected earlier and that some potentially dangerous activities may be blocked completely (which could protect me from malware not detected by Avast!). But for malware detected by Avast!, am I actually leaving open any security holes by using only the Standard Shield?
IMHO the Standard Shield is the main on-access shield and it’s OK if you use only it, but if you have programs like MSN, P2P programs, mail programs it is strongly recommended to use the appropriative Shield/Provider for the program
Also if you use Internet you must use Web Shield too!!!
Yes, think of Standard Shield as a last line of defence and thing of your other providers as a first line of defence, their task in most cases is to detect a virus before it gets on to your HDD where it is more difficult to handle.
You need only have the providers that are applicable to what you do on the internet. If you don’t use file sharing P2P then you don’t need that provider, check the avast help file for a description of each of the providers and you will see if you require them.
And IF the security level is let on HIGH, otherwise even the Standard Shield won’t detect some infections.
I see not a reason to use only the Standard as dedicated providers will catch the virus first and better sometimes.
Web Shield, for instance, HTTP (web) traffic before it reaches the browser.
Web > Web Shield > Browser > Standard Shield
All data is first checked and then passed to the browser, and if the data is cached it can be also checked by Standard Shield.
So there is much smaller chance of getting infected by some exploit if the data is scanned before it actually hits the browser itself. In other words, the idea of the web shield is to scan the http stream, to detect any possible virus infection before it has time to get established on the local disk.
Besides this, avast is the first antivirus with a dedicated NNTP scanner for “News”.
Well, for optimal protection you need 4 providers.
Standard Shield, teh basic form of protection
Network Shield, Sasser/Blaster like IDS protection
Web Shield, protection from browser exploits,ActiveX contrls and other web hazards
Internet Mail, even if you don’t use any mail client it’s still useful as Proactive module to detect Mass mail worms even if they are not detected by any other provider using signatures
Well Netowrk Shield and P2P/IM Shields don’t use any visually extra memory.
Internet Mail and Web Shield do. But not that much and most of the memory is actually shared with main process but only shown as separate in Task Manager.
