new user here: installed avast! today (after two years of avg) because of positive remarks towards it on the mozilla.org forum. Two questions though:
1: I have two different smtp servers and four different pop servers. In the mail protection wizard, I can only specify one pop and one smtp server that avast! will check on. I already checked one other pop account, and yes, avast didn’t saw any virus in a virus-containing email. The account - appearantly - isn’t checked, because it isn’t specified in MPW. I already read (through the search function of this forum) that many people have multiple pop&smtp servers running through avast!, but I can’t figure out how Anyone, anywhere?
2: AVG was a charming piece of coding because of a: low mem&cpu usage and b: was very passive (did run, but almost unnoticed). I already ticked ‘constant connection to internet’ so that it stops pinging (I think that’s what the second blue icon in the systray was about), but I still doubt about the actual mem, cpu and inet usage. Especially the memory usage is somewhat bizarre (total amount of 22 mb). Can someone give something of a comparison between AVG and avast! Even better: why should I use Avast! instead of AVG? I’m using it now because it’s the only free virus scanner that integrates with Thunderbird, but I still prefer modesty above safety (I don’t open any attachements of anyone if I suspect anything, and AVG always noticed the files that were contained if I tried to open them from the place where I saved them).
Summary: convince me of why I have installed Avast! I know it’s arrogant, but I need to be convinced that I’m using the most proper tool for the task that it has to do. Otherwise I’ll keep doubting all the time, and I want to be sure that what I use for antivirus is the best there is for my situation.
Just run the MPW you will be able to choose ‘all’ accounts (even those that will be created in the future…). Do not mess the ‘standard’ pop/smtp server with all your emails accounts. You’ll be protected in all of them. I have almost 10 with different smtp and pop servers, all protected by avast.
Stop doubting now >:(
You have the best av, the best forum, the best protection, the best configuration… Let’s talk seriously …
About the second icon (the ‘i’ ball), it’s the VRDB (a database for recovery in case of infection…). ;D
Hm about second question…
I’ve tested many antivirus programs and only three (3) have qualified to be easy to use and efficient.
BitDefender,Pc-cillin 2004 and ofcourse Avast!.
Avast! can be confugured to work as YOU want not how developers want it,small and regular updates,many options on how to get rid of a viruses,and most important outstanding tech support (just try to ask something at Symantec : ).
Oh and i shouldn’t forget awesome skins
Do you mean to say that I should change the current pop and smtp info (for instance: pop.tiscali.nl) into ‘localhost’, and that the specific pop and smptp server that should be used is entered in the user screen? I don’t have any experience with a virus scanner ‘around’ my email client, so maybe this is just plain normal stuff, but I’m kind of unaware about it.
Let’s put it another way: on my current amd xp palomino 2000+ with 512 mb ddr on a a7s333 with win2kpro + sp4, will it bring performance down much? Because I use this rig for making music, as little resources as possible should be taken by backgrond software.
Avast! has some unique features to scan as fast as possible and to use as low resources as possible. I don’t see the difference on my system (check my signature) and i have everything set to High sensitivity.
Extra temporal icon? Which one do you mean? The one with letter “i” ? Or the one which shows only when you get new mail?
The second is quiet obvious,because it warns you that a virus was detected. If you really really hate it,than lets wait for someone from Alwil (i don’t have an idea where to turn it off)
The one which shows only when I get new mail. I hate moving things, especially in my systray, and especially if I can’t decide myself wether to turn it of or on.
I understand the importance of letting me know that a virus has been detected, but it looks like the bloody circus has entered town whenever a virus pops in (and with getting the email of a quite often visited site and a quite often used domain for email addresses, I get a lot of viruses).
Inge
ps: before dear beloved writers or colleagues of Avast! start thinking that I’m a perpetual annoying little bastard: yes and no. Yes, because I like to get the best out of the software I use, and no, because in the end I’m just a satisfied customer who seeks to find as much joy and identity in his virusscanner as he wishes.
ps2: congratulations so far for this forum. Your response time is even bigger than down at mozilla & sudhian. Thumbs!
Thanks for both answers. I’ve already disabled the icon in the mail preferences, and I am still thinking about editing the avast4.ini for disabling the layer. The problem of disabling that one is that I won’t have any clue left of wether or not an email is infected.
The ‘on-access protection control’ → ‘internet mail’ → ‘customize’ gives the possibility for a ‘silent mode’, in which (in heuristics) it could simply tag infected emails in their subject (after which I could decide myself to open them or not). In the tab ‘advanced’, I’ve enabled ‘silent mode’ (with ‘general answer → yes’, whatever that may be), and in ‘heuristics’, I’ve enabled ‘silent mode → mark it in subject field’. These are the only settings I could think of to enable the silent mode (I was hoping that silent would imply no yellow layer), and how it would simply add a tag to infected emails. Or is silent mode something else?
In short, Silent mode means: no questions. I.e., it should’ve also been called unattended mode as it is guaranteed that no user response will be required no matter how tough the situation is.
This doesn’t mean that no stuff will be drawn on the screen, though…
Okay, yes, that explains. And the tagging of emails? Can that be done (as the configuration sort of indicates), or am I misguided here?
The INI thing I described in my previous post only affects the yellow-red on-screen “layer”. Nothing else. So if you have the Internet Mail provider set up to add tags to infected mails, that functionality will stay unchanged.
But is this transparency thing working in versions before 353 (beta) ?
Er…I’m afraid I didn’t explain properly. The thing is that the subject of my emails does not get tagged with a message when it is infected, eventhough I configured Avast! to do so. How comes that? Did I miss on a parameter that needed (un)checking?
Anyone, anywhere?
I know it’s arrogant, but I need to be convinced that I’m using the most proper tool for the task that it has to do. Otherwise I’ll keep doubting all the time, and I want to be sure that what I use for antivirus is the best there is for my situation.
).