How do I turn off notifications? (bell icon)

DPX · 2017-07-04T23:10:31.000Z

I have Avast Pro Antivirus and recently, every single damn time I scan ANYTHING, the “problems & notifications” area (aka “the bell icon”) shows alerts telling me I just did.

I want to turn that off. it’s annoying and completely unnecessary. I know what i did, I don’t need anything to repeat it to me and bug me about it.

The problem is I can’t turn it off! I can’t find a single setting that’ll turn off (or better yet, remove) this horrible so-called feature. Whenever I look up information, all the stupid advice out there is stuff like “turn on silent mode” or “turn off the pop-up sounds.” Neither of those are my issues, nor do they do anything to solve it. I’ve tried turning on silent mode before (and it’s useless for this problem) and I turned off the sounds a long, long time ago because those are just obnoxious.

There has to be a way to turn that horrid bell icon notification crap off. If I have to manually edit files or even the registry, I’ll do it. Just tell me how to do it and please, read this post and don’t repeat useless advice to me like the aforementioned silent mode, etc.

Thank you.

Pondus · 2017-07-04T23:18:08.000Z

Could you attach a screenshot?

DavidR · 2017-07-04T23:30:09.000Z

I don’t believe there is an option to turn these notifications off.

This whole issue of the notifications area has been a pain in the backside since it was introduced

Personally, I would go to the root of this and don’t bother with on-demand scans.

With a resident (on-access) scanner the need for on-demand scans is much depreciated. For the most part dormant/inert files are being scanned, the other active files are going to be scanned by the resident shields when they are activated.

The only problem it isn’t just scans that get reported there, any shield that is disabled would attract attention also, rather than the old notification in the avast tray icon.

Eddy · 2017-07-05T10:52:20.000Z

Silent mode will not turn off the notifications, it will only not show pop-ups about events/detections.

Currently there is no way to turn off the notifications.

They do not bother me at all.
I have the avast icon hidden in the system tray and have set the tray to automatically hide.

Rundvleeskroket · 2017-07-05T11:09:29.000Z

DavidR post:3:

Personally, I would go to the root of this and don’t bother with on-demand scans.

With a resident (on-access) scanner the need for on-demand scans is much depreciated. For the most part dormant/inert files are being scanned, the other active files are going to be scanned by the resident shields when they are activated.

See, this sounds reasonable but there are exceptions.

Today I downloaded an ISO file. It only got a cursory scan. If I want to know if something harmful lurks inside, I need to mount it and scan the contents manually. And yes I want to scan it before I try and install the program, because if I rely on the resident scanner I might end up with an aborted and botched install because Avast intervened halfway through, and it’ll leave me with a lot of manual cleanup of folders and the registry etc. So I’d rather know beforehand and not even bother starting the install.

On demand scanning definitely has it’s uses.

On the topic of the bell icon: If I could disable the bell, I surely would. It’s near useless.

DavidR · 2017-07-05T11:36:15.000Z

There is nothing to stop the user doing a right click scan and it may well have been scanned by the web shield when downloaded.

The default setting of on-demand scans, wouldn’t be scanning ISO files anyway, so you would have to have enabled that in the scan settings for Packers.

Rundvleeskroket · 2017-07-05T15:58:53.000Z

DavidR post:6:

There is nothing to stop the user doing a right click scan and it may well have been scanned by the web shield when downloaded.

No it wouldn’t. Not to a similar degree of scrutiny. Certainly not with default settings. It takes some time to plow through all the files of a large iso with a on-demand scan, so activity like that from the resident scanner would be very noticable during download. It doesn’t happen.

The default setting of on-demand scans, wouldn't be scanning ISO files anyway, so you would have to have enabled that in the scan settings for Packers.

I’m not manually scanning the ISO itself. That is no different than the simple quick resident scan during/after download. I mount it and then scan the actual contents. As a folder/drive. Exactly because otherwise it will just do a superficial scan. Scanning the contents takes way longer this way because it is a deeper scan. And I actually prefer this over enabling more exhaustive default scanning in the resident scanner, to include packers for instance. It does mean there is a role for on-demand scanning, and this is a good example of that.

Another example is that by default, archives are not scanned thoroughly. Which is good from a performance perspective. On extraction the resident scanner will do a more in depth scan, especially on the executables. Anything sketchy will be blocked. Now imagine this during an install near the end of the process. Half the program/game/whatever is installed, and then the installation is halted before the uninstaller is installed. This has happened to me in the past. It is a pain in the rear to fix. A on-demand scan beforehand prevents such messes.

bob3160 · 2017-07-05T22:17:06.000Z

Never ran into your “problems” and I test many programs etc.
Also don’t waste time doing scheduled scans. If I want to scan a file before running the installer, the right click
scanner has always done a good job.
Your computer, your choice.

Rundvleeskroket · 2017-07-06T08:02:29.000Z

Again: an ISO is different. A right click scan will not scan the contents of an ISO. It will just scan the ISO as a file itself, which at default settings is just a quick pass. Looking at the header and such. So neither the resident scanner nor a on-demand scan will do an in-depth scan of the ISO. Mounting the ISO however, and then scanning the mounted folder/drive, will result in scan of the actual contents. Which typically is program data with lots of executables.

My point is that either you set the resident scanner to scan every bit of every file downloaded or accessed, and massively slow down the PC, or … leave the resident scanner at the default sane settings, and be aware it will most definitely miss things. So don’t rely on the resident scanner as a catch all gatekeeper. Which brings us back to my initial observation of: there are a very real use cases for the on-demand scanner over the resident scanner. And even then you have to use it in the right way. It is just one of those exceptions I mentioned.

DavidR · 2017-07-06T09:12:01.000Z

Well the resident (on-access) scanner also has more tools in its toolbox that aren’t in the on-demand scans; Behaviour Shield; Cyber Capture; Hardened Mode & Reputation Services, come to mind.

Rundvleeskroket · 2017-07-06T09:24:11.000Z

None of which I use. Do these additional tools scan (or know/compare) every file the OS touches completely? Otherwise these do not negate the issue.

Personally I really don’t want to send hashes or whatever to Avast of every file I open or download. A scan should be local and local only imo. I’m fine with the default settings of the resident scanner as a trade off of performance vs scrutiny. I’m just aware that exceptions exist that warrent further steps. An ISO is one of those exceptions. I understand not everyone ever downloads ISOs, but I do fairly regularly. And happened to do so yesterday so it came to mind.

bob3160 · 2017-07-06T11:38:29.000Z

Rundvleeskroket post:11:

None of which I use. Do these additional tools scan (or know/compare) every file the OS touches completely? Otherwise these do not negate the issue.

Personally I really don’t want to send hashes or whatever to Avast of every file I open or download. A scan should be local and local only imo. I’m fine with the default settings of the resident scanner as a trade off of performance vs scrutiny. I’m just aware that exceptions exist that warrent further steps. An ISO is one of those exceptions. I understand not everyone ever downloads ISOs, but I do fairly regularly. And happened to do so yesterday so it came to mind.

As I already mentioned in my last reply, your computer, your choice. Certainly not mine and not that of many of the others helping on this forum and using Avast.

Rundvleeskroket · 2017-07-06T16:47:50.000Z

So which of the mentioned additional tools in the resident scanner’s arsenal would, at default settings, scan the actual contents of an unmounted ISO? I’m curious.

DavidR · 2017-07-06T19:02:24.000Z

A lot depends on the fact that to mount an ISO, those files would in effect be newly created, that should trigger the on-access file system scanner for its default settings on files to be scanned.

As has been said it is your system and you would appear to have already made your choice.

Rundvleeskroket · 2017-07-07T08:55:02.000Z

The statement was:

Personally, I would go to the root of this and don't bother with on-demand scans.

This implies that the functionality of the on-demand scanner is fully superseded by the all singing, all dancing resident scanner. And it isn’t.

This isn’t about my choices on my machine. This is about providing accurate information to everybody reading this forum. Being aware of the exceptions as they exist.

An unmounted ISO will not be completely scanned at download (nor should it), and an infected installer will most likely only be stopped mid-unpack/mid-install and leave a big mess to clean up.

I agree that hopefully mounting the ISO will trigger the resident scanner, but then it would still only scan with its default settings which are as I understand less scrutinizing than an manual on-demand scan of the files/folders inside. And in the case of an installer you really would prefer to force a scan of the whole thing before starting the installation. So again: using the on-demand scanner. So it either clears and the installation will complete, or it gets blocked and no cleanup is required because no install was initiated.

system · 2017-07-07T11:28:39.000Z

it would be nice if avast will add an option to turn it off.

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