Extreme lag when Webshield running

I’ve been using the AVAST Home Edition for a few months now. But since about a week ago, it seems something is buggy. When I have the Webshield activated, I can load a handful of pages before I get stuck loading a page forever. When I close the browser (it happens both with IE and with Firefox), start it again and try to load the same page, it loads flawlessly, until after a few minutes later when the whole process starts again.

This happens only when Webshield is active or paused. It does not happen when Webshield is turned off. As I said, this has been happening for about a week, when before I used AVAST for months without problems. I didn’t install any new programs lately, either, so I’m totally baffled why this has suddenly started to happen.

Any advice?

What is you OS and firewall ?
Have (or did) you have another AV installed in this system, if so what and how did you get rid of it ?
What other security based software do you have that might have an effect, e.g. SpySweeper, Spyware Doctor, PrevX, WinPatrol, Windows Defender, ProcessGuard, etc. ?

There is obviously something going on if as you say it has only been happening for about a week. The web shield is a strange beast, but it either works or it doesn’t it shouldn’t suffer any inconsistent performance of now its working now its not.

Do you use any P2P application/s ?
What are you doing when this slowdown occurs ?

Let’s see… the OS is Windows XP Home edition, the Firewall is the regular Windows one.

Up until a few months ago, I used Antivir and then AVG (alternating) for a few weeks, along with Adaware and Spybuster (alternating too). I got rid of all of them by simply using the deinstall feature for them before I installed AVAST.

Regarding P2P, I do have Emule installed, but I haven’t used it for a while.

Avg does leave a few things behind. Check their web site for info regarding cleaning out leftovers. Not sure about antivir.

Both AVG and Antivir could left Legacy drivers behind (or registry keys), for instance:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_AVG7CORE
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_ANTIVIRSCHEDULER

Activate logging in WebShield:

  1. Edit \data\avast4.ini file
  2. Find the section [WebScanner]
  3. Add the line:
    EnableLogging=1
  4. Restart Web Shield in XP (terminate and start again) or whole PC in case of Win98
  5. Browse (trying to access some webpages)

The log file are \data\log\ashwebsv.log and ashwebsv.ws.
They would be accessible when WebShield is terminated again.
Post them here or send by mail to rypacek (at) asw.cz

After that, disable the logging to avoid a big log file.

Thanks Tech for the heads up. I can confirm the email. Although I would prefere something like rypacek (at) asw.cz as the spam rate is already pretty high. :wink:

Edit: Many thanks Tech, that was QUICK!!!

Sorry… I’ll change my post :-[