I have Avast Internet Security on all of my systems and when I test them by trying to download some of the files at http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm, such as eicar.com, my browser says “the connection was reset” but I don’t always get an Avast pop-up saying “Malware Blocked”.
I get the pop-up sometimes on my Windows 7 system, but never on my XP system, but on both the browser connections are reset.
On both systems, the web shield options is to “abort connection” and to “Show a notification window when action is taken”.
Thanks for your post. I just found the problem. It is Avast’s sandbox feature which I’m running my browsers in!
I tested again, running outside of the sandbox, and now I always get the pop-up notification on both systems when I hit the EICAR signatures.
This behavior sounds like a bug to me, since the A/V engine should still notify regardless of whether a browser is running in or out of a sandbox, especially since it is apparent that it is finding the “malware” as evidenced by resetting the browser connection.