How silent is AIS

I’m considering upgrading to AIS but I’d like to know how silent it is, especially the Firewall component. I used NIS from 2005-2009 and was very pleased with how unobtrusive it was. It never gave a connection alert for a safe application but did block some bad things. I think the Norton Firewall is excellent in that regard. Norton would also recognize updated versions of things and allow them through without problems. This is very important if you’re a gamer and get frequent updates and patches to games and the version numbers or even names of updaters change frequently.

If the avast! firewall is that silent and still effective as well, then I’m interested. If it isn’t, and sometimes alerts to connections by safe or changed safe apps, then I’ll pass.

In my experience when set to auto-decide AIS FW is very silent - I’ve had AIS since it was first released, and I can’t honestly recall it ever saying anything unless I had it set to manual.

I always have it set to block all incoming anyway - so inbound is no issue for me (and I have a router firewall).

I have no idea if it is effective in blocking outbound malware connections, because to the best of my knowledge I have never had any.

It could be completely silent: zero-popups (auto-decide).

The only popup i have seen comes when i switch from WiFi (Home) to 3G (Puplic) networks

THE SILENTEST DUDE

I don’t ever hear from it. For the longest time I had it set to ask because there was an event that happened where it created a rule that it should not have. I now have it set to auto. My paranoia causes me to check the rules often though. Other than that, I like it. I don’t know of another suite that is as customizable and has as many features. And… the tech support is top notch. ;D I also like that it is a package. No need to exclude this and that in the rules in order for things to work properly. No conflicts from another firewall. If something goes wrong you pretty much know where to look right away.

I saw somewhere where it is 57% off in free edition. Git-r-dun! You won’t regret it. You could always install it in trial mode. Then when you uninstall it you may even get a better deal than the 57% off. Thing is, the asking price differs from here to there. So the 57% off may or may not be the best deal.

I’ve had AIS on three computers since last August of 2010 have never heard a peep from the firewall on any of them. Yes, auto decide.

Thanks guys, I’m mainly interested because I have stepped up my internet buying habits and also have a debit card and combination savings account now that is only accessible on line. I think I should have the increased security that the full suite offers so I just might take the plunge. It’s cheap enough now that If I don’t like it, I don’t have to renew next year.

Absolutely right!

I think you will be very pleased.

Okay I did it and everything looks fine except that now on the updating screen it says “connection not established” for the streaming updates. It never said that for the free version.

I like how the firewall works. I disabled the Win 7 Firewall after setting it back to defaults. Is the protection better with both on or the same? I imagine the Win Firewall would still alert to allow incoming? The Avast one has allowed both incoming and outgoing for World of Warcraft and for uTorrent. The second one surprised me a bit. Oh also, I’m not sure the spam filter is working. It still shows nothing scanned but I have received 5 emails that are showing scanned by the mail shield.

My streaming update connection drops out every now and then too. I’m not going to complain too much about though. I am confident that all the wrinkles will be ironed out soon.

My webmail, msn and gmail, are scanned and filtered well before avast gets a look at it. I see a bunch of email in the msn junk mail folder daily. My gmail account is my private email and I never see junk mail here. I only setup gmail in avast to see it work. Otherwise, I don’t really need avast to scan for viruses and filter email.

Have you tried SafeZone yet?

Yes I like the safe zone. I have discovered something strange though. The firewall will not make a rule for IE9 but increments the rules number in the Microsoft group by one every time I open the browser.

So you have several rules for IE9? Go to the firewall rules and at the bottom of the page is file details. Same file name and path? Screenshot?

Try restarting your computer.

Let them both.

No it didn’t show any rules at all for IE9 but the popup came up for a new rule every time I opened it with the name of the program blank. I rebooted and now it shows a rule that says “friends in, Internet out” I had initially set the firewall on the Home setting and then changed it to Work after some rules had already been created. Maybe that’s why?

Just set Avast firewall to Home profile and run/update all you programs…Avast will create best settings for these programs,than you can change security level to Public. I hope you are satisfied with Avast Internet Security :wink:

I can’t change the settings for the Firewall. It’s stuck on home and keeps reverting back to that every time it restarts.

Did you perform a clean install or just insert the license? I would try another restart.

Now you can always run your browser virtualized.

Avast is very silent and does all the tasks with minimum user interaction. It has a Game mode in which no notification is displayed while using full screen applications like games. So go ahead and use ‘avast! IS’ :slight_smile:

I had to completely reinstall it. I had selected to remember the answer to the mode setting the first time and that’s why it kept reverting back to the Home profile. This time I didn’t tell it to remember so I can change it any way I please. The first install was simply an upgrade from Free. All I did was click on the license file and it upgraded automatically. All would have been fine if I hadn’t chosen the Home profile and told it to remember the answer. To get the installation file I had to use the link from the first page of the forum thread on the new release. Everything seems to be okay now and for $29.99 for all 3 of the systems here, that’s a very good deal. I just hope the renewal costs the same a year from now.:-).

I really have no need to run my browser sandboxed though. The safe browser deal is enough for when I’m shopping or accessing my banking site.

I also have found that on auto-decide it often allows all connections for things that don’t need it. I have now turned the Windows Firewall back on so I’ll know when things require an incoming connection and I can set everything else to outgoing only in AIS.