Enabling File System Shield makes Chrome browsing SLOW

Avast Mac Security
1

Enabling File System Shield slows down Chrome Beta in the following way. Upon entering a URL in the omnibox and pressing enter, a delay of 5 seconds or so is experienced. There are no delays after clicking links, however.

I’m running OS X 10.7.4. I had Sophos installed and ran it’s official uninstaller a week ago or so. Installed Avast shortly thereafter. No other security apps. I hadn’t noticed this phenomenon until just recently, however.

Enabling or disabling Web Shield causes no change in speed with File System Shield On. Slow either way. It’s only File System Shield that’s causing the problem w/ Chrome Beta. It does not cause this problem with Safari 5.x or Firefox 13.x.

Is there a log available or some other means to diagnose this?

Disabling File System Shield removes this problem so I’ve disabled it for now. Any idea why?

2

Can you take a look at the file shield to see if it continuously scans a certain file? Have you tried clearing out temporary internet files?
Will you please post a link to the Chrome beta that you are using? Version Number?

I don’t have Mac so I am just performing forum searches to see what I can come up with.

3

Wow, thanks!

plasmideryan said this: “Close your browser, open avast, go in WebRep, uninstall the application for your browsers and then you can return on the internet with a good speed. (sorry for my english I’m french.)”

Webrep settings says Chrome extension isn’t installed and to quit the browser and install it. When I quit Chrome and attempt to install Webrep, it provides an error: “Webrep plugin could not be installed. Error 7103.”

I had Webrep enabled before but uninstalled it via chrome://extensions because I don’t prefer it. Perhaps this is the problem, but it only takes place when I have File System Shield activated.

4

Edit: Clearing Chrome’s browsing data solved the slowness problem. Still get error 7013 upon trying to install Webrep in Chrome, but I’m not really interested in the extension anyway.

5

If you encounter the slow-down problem, please help us to fix it by providing some data. See this topic:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=99250.0

Thanks,
Mity

6

Thanks, FWIW the Chrome slowness problem with Avast wasn’t solved. I switched to Sophos and have no problems.

I’ll try this in a day or two to support your search to solve the prob.

7

This looks like a smoking gun, as it reproduces consistently on my machine:

  • Google a term in the Chrome search bar, page load takes 5-6 seconds
  • Add /Users/(me)/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/ to Excluded paths
  • Google a term, result takes 1-2 seconds
  • Remove excluded path
  • Googling a term takes 5-6 seconds again

This is also consistent whether or not the other two scanner types (mail and web) are active.

Curiously, the “File System Shield” activity display does not show a spike in scanned files during this long pauses.

I’m leaving that path excluded. It’s unfortunate not to have it covered, but the pauses are bad enough that I think the only alternative is a full uninstall.