how to disable avast free

Hi, i wanto disable Avast to run futurmark 3dmark11 which doesnt work with it, but the only thing the user interface shows to disable is real time sheild. Nothing about disabling the whole program

Right click the ball near the clock and choose disable.

hey Eddy, im using version 6.0.1203 and its not listed

Well, although you also have Avast tray icon → right click “Silent/Gaming Mode” as one possibility (and remember to undo the setting for “every day use” after the game), I don’t think that’s what you are looking for.

Eddy’s suggestion is:

Look for the Avast tray icon → right click → Avast shields control → Disable for…

Be aware, disabling the shields, you are less protected.

still havent figure out what silent gaming mode does but dont think its what i need now

Eddy's suggestion is:

Look for the Avast tray icon → right click → Avast shields control → Disable for…

Be aware, disabling the shields, you are less protected.

diabling sheild control doesnt help, I dont know whats wrong with 3dmark11 but been told its avast so wanto find out by disabling the whole program

do i need to uninstall it?

No idea, but I wouldn’t disable/uninstall my AV for a benchmark test…

Not sure why 3DMark wouldn’t work with avast! enabled. Plus i can tell you that avast! doesn’t affect the final score or performance.

For ANY performance test, ANYTHING running can affect the results.

One thing is that a certain (benchmark) program might have some incompatibility with Avast (or with any other AV tool).

A very different thing is that you want to run that (benchmark) program without ANY interference or influence from Avast (or from ANY running program, for that matter). For this second situation (a “lab” test"), you would still have some influence coming from “anything” running (services, drivers, processes…).

So, if you don’t want ANY influence (for the purpose of the benchmark), then I’m not sure you can use ANY kind of resident security tool, at all. You either uninstall “anything and everything”, or you run your benchmark under Windows Safe Mode (which by itself gives you different results than when running the same benchmark in a “pure and clean” recently installed Windows Normal Mode.

If you could provide a more specific detail information about what is exactly not working or what is “not compatible”, then maybe we can help you better.

I’ve been benching with avast! in the background and without it a lot in the past and there was no difference at all apart from the error mergin that happens for various other reasons not related to antivirus. Especially ot 3DMark which pretty much copies all the data in memory and executes it there. avast! doesn’t really interfer on that part, otherwise you’d have serious problems in games as well. But i haven’t noticed any so far in what, 7 years?

3dmark11 running just fine over here with avast! installed and fully enabled. No performance hit either just as RejZoR says.

Interesting that no one really has an answer for actually disabling/turning off/exiting avast! free.

It seems there isn’t actually a way to turn off avast! free. Yes - you can disable the shields - but that is not the same thing.

I find this a major oversite - and a mistake that should be rectified. A lot of programs allow you the options of disabling individual componenets (in avast! case - the shields) as well as exiting/terminating the program itself.

  1. Not really interesting, imo.
  2. Well, it’s an AV after all, I don’t think that “terminating” an AV should be easy. :wink:

How is it not interesting that the program doesn’t include basic functionality included in most, if not all, other anti-virus / firewall / security suite programs?

Seriously. There is sometimes a need to disable/termine your anti-virus software. It should not be hard to do.

Why not take it as constructive criticism rather than defending a design mistake?

  1. Highly disagree…!!
  2. That’s no mistake at all, imo.

You can disable it but it isn’t recommended for obvious reasons. At least unplug yourself from the internet when you disable it.

Here is how to do it.

Open avast and go to settings → troubleshooting → untick enable avast! self-defense module and select yes when the confirmation dialog pops up. Now open Task Manager and close down any avast services and processes you have running.

To start avast! again, simply restart your computer. And don’t forget to re-enable the self-defense module.

Just an update, im soo noob :-[

finally tried Eddy’s suggestion (right click the icon to disable “sheilds control” and realised that does disable all components of the whole program. lol sry

thanks Eddy :slight_smile:

Fair enough.

I do disconnect myself from my network (hence my Internet connection) before disabling anti-virus and firewall (which will be avast and comodo in my case). I even go as far to disable my wireless network adapter (my other adapters are always disabled).

My reason for doing so is so that I ensure I don’t get any conflict when imaging my notebook using Macrium Reflect Free.

This ensures the image will not have issues if I need to restore it at any point.

I do currently use the option to “Disable all shields permanently” and then use Process Explorer and Services to ensure all avast! services are off (after having turned off avast! self defence first of course).

I’m just saying it would be easier if I could just right click on the avast system tray icon and click “exit” or something similar.

Disagree all you like it doesn’t make it less true. I’ve explained myself above - better than you have in fact (you’re just coming across as someone with blind obedience …like an Apple “fanboi”).