Network Shield Not Working

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I’m using Avast Home 4.8.1169. The Network Shield seems to not be working. It shows the following:

Last scanned:
Last infected:
Scanned count: 0
Infected count: 0
Task Name: Resident protection
Run time: 2:53:24

I hear others saying that its OK, its working as it should and will pop up when it detects an attack. I’m not satisfied with that statement, because I had the Web Shield doing this same thing until I found, by luck, instructions on how to set up a proxy in Firefox.

So before I actually entered the required settings for Web Shield, it too was showing the same stats as Network Shield is now, and at the time, I thought Web Shield too was working as it should, but it obviously it wasn’t.

Can you guys see my reason for concern?

2

Please tell us the operating system you are using.

3

Which firewall do you use?

4

ioyuioynx,

you have posted the same thing in four different threads. Please stay in this one now.

5

Windows XP Pro SP3.

6

Online Armour 2.1.0.130

7

Network Shield is a protection against known Internet worms/attacks. It analyses all network traffic and scans it for malicious contents. It can be also taken as a lightweight firewall (or more precisely, an IDS (Intrusion Detection System).

Basically, it covers all Internet worms. Such as Win32.CodeRed, Win32.SQLSlammer, Win32.Blaster, in32.Welchia (Nachi) and Win32.Sasser.

Messages like:
If you use a firewall and, most important, if your operational system is updated you won’t probably receive warnings from NetShield.

8

My apologies. I just wanted to be sure that the right people would get my post.

I’ll redirect all other discussion to here.

9

Your post is never lost here in avast forums.

10
Windows XP Pro SP3.

Then you should not need any kind of proxy to be set up for the Webshield.

11

Not so. The Web Shield was not working until i set up the localhost 12080 proxy.

12

I get that, but why this:

Last scanned:
Last infected:
Scanned count: 0
Infected count: 0

Why are these always blank or 0?
It certainly doesn’t instill confidence.

13

Then it implies that something else in your system is blocking the intercept that avast sets for port 80.

Are you using any other proxy for Web browsing?

Perhaps VPN software or any kind of browsing “accelerator”?

14

Ad Muncher is all I’m using.

15

You need to worry when the counts are not zero and something has been scanned. avast cannot scan anything that does not get through your firewall (and/or router).

16

Well, is there any way to test whether the Network Shield is working?

Unless you can test it, or it gives status updates like what was last checked, etc, to people, its as good as not working.

17

If you have a good firewall and/or a router it is pretty much as good as useless.

I never have it on.

If you want to really test it then try running connected directly to the internet without a firewall. I do not recommend this.

18

I’ll test it on my wifes Vista Home Premium laptop. Currently, she has the Windows Firewall on, so I’ll turn that off and see if Network Shield picks anything up. How long do you think it will take without a firewall for it to start getting attacked?

PS: I have a Netcomm NB6Plus4 ADSL Modem/Router. Would I have to do anything to its settings also? I hope not. I don’t really wanna mess with it.

19

The router you have will almost certainly prevent anything getting through to be detected by avast. Your router will probably allow you to turn off the hardware firewall functionality. But …

Were you one of the users I support I would advise you not to mess with it. Leave your router alone, your firewall on and forget about the Network Shield. Yours and your wife’s systems will be much safer that way.

20

By the way … what is the version of Ad Muncher you are using?

Given it’s description it has to work as avast does too so it is a proxy. I would like to take a look at it’s interaction with avast.