does? I’m on my desktop so I can’t verify this is the case on my Vista laptop that runs Avast 5 but I read it on another forum. I could run"Change" in Add/Remove and remove the IM shield if necessary. Thank You!
Yes, unless you select “Disable permanently”. Then, it will not start. It’s probably using a few resources, but not nearly as many if it was enabled. If you want to free all resources for a particular shield, then the “Change” as you noted would be better.
I don’t really know, but I do recall one post that stated that they had selected Disable/Sotp Permanently (but that is for all shields, right click on the avast icon) and it started them on reboot, which personally I think is the way it should be as avast is after all a resident antivirus.
But shields that are Stopped through the UI, Real Time Shields (with exception to the File System Shield, I would have thought would stay in that state on reboot (I have never tried it). That however, would cause avast to display an ! over the tray icon and report it unsecured, unless you disabled that reporting.
Personally I would opt for completely removing the shields (using the Change option in Add/Remove programs) that you don’t use like the P2P and or IM Shield, the rest I would consider essential.