need a bit of help with Avast

system · 2007-06-18T02:11:13.000Z

good day all,

after 3 years without an Anti-Virus (just Outpost Firewall and my ethernet router/modem) i decided it was the time
to get an anti-virus because i thought its better safe than sorry, i have never ever been infected because i have always
used common sense but these days you never know, trojans and other malware can sneak without notice at any time.

anyways, after trying some of the free AV such as AVG/Antivir and being totally unimpressed with the slowdowns on my pc
(Core2Duo e6600, 8800gtx nvidia and 2gb ram) a good friend told me about AVAST so i gave the Home Edition a try
and was impressed, even at the highest settings no slowdown and excellent memory usage but what impressed me the most
is the detection of trojans which previously Avg and Antivir failed to detect.

sorry for the history lesson but i just wanted to let you know that i really love AVAST!

[i]i just need some help setting up the Extensions in the “standard Shield” in the Blocker…it is set to DEFAULT EXTENSIONS…

but how do i add an extension i want it to be monitored or blocked?!

i have tried adding “.Doc” , .Doc , DOC, doc , document, *.doc …even though i create a DOC file and try to rename
it still doesnt detect anything, it detects only for the Default ones such as .DLL and stuff.[/i]

any help please? Thanks.

DavidR · 2007-06-18T14:03:56.000Z

I just tested it, added just lower case doc (which when I checked later was converted to upper case), ticked the Renaming operation and most importantly, Deny the operation.

I created a Test document and saved it, surprise it even blocked that and popped-up an allow/deny dialogue window. I played with it denying and Word alerted a problem, etc. so I eventually allowed it to get it saved. I tried to rename and it lets you get to rename the file but when you try to click enter boom up pops the alert cycle.

See images, I believe you didn’t check the Deny the operation. Personally I think you will tire of this blocking as it can really become a pain, it did for me.

system · 2007-06-18T23:06:10.000Z

it worked!

yep, it was the DENY thing had to be ticked. excellent job

thank you!!!

DavidR · 2007-06-18T23:23:12.000Z

No problem, glad we could help.
Welcome to the forums.

Stick around and browse the forums, especially the sticky topics at the top of each of the forums, not to mention the avast help file. They provide a wealth of information to help you get the best from avast.

system · 2007-06-20T09:48:17.000Z

ill surely will

i have small question though, i was reading about anti-viruses Proactive Protection…

how do you enable that in Avast?
my standard Detection is set to HIGH, does that means HEuristics is enabled?

im a bit confused.

so

What is or how do i enable Proactive Protection (if it exist in Home Edtion)
does High enabled Heuristics in Avast?

thanks and sorry if i asked too many things.

DavidR · 2007-06-20T12:17:14.000Z

Heuristics is only incorporated in the Internet Mail provider, avast uses generic signatures to try to detect new variants of previously detected malware.

I don’t understand what you mean by proactive protection, it means many things to many people, I don’t know what you have been reading so have nothing to use as a reference.

You could consider pro-active measures outside of just your AV or firewall, in order to place files in the system folders and create registry entries you need permission. Prevention is much better and theoretically easier than cure.

Whilst browsing or collecting email, etc. if you get infected then the malware by default inherits the same permissions that you have for your user account. So if the user account has administrator rights, the malware has administrator rights and can reap havoc. With limited rights the malware can’t put files in the system folders, create registry entries, etc. This greatly reduces the potential harm that can be done by an undetected or first day virus, etc.

Check out the link to DropMyRights (in my signature below) - Browsing the Web and Reading E-mail Safely as an Administrator. This obviously applies to those NT based OSes that have administrator settings, winNT, win2k, winXP.

The Windows Vista version of IE 7 will provide a Protected Mode that gives the browser sufficient rights to browse the Web, but not enough rights to modify user settings or data. Protected Mode will only be available to Vista users because the functionality depends on the reworked user account system in Windows Vista. Vista’s version of IE 7 will also be able to automatically install security and other updates; that will not be the case in the XP version.

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