New User Problems

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I have recently installed Avast after using AVG, and have a few queries.

When the simple interface screen comes up there is a small box at the bottom to tick if you don’t want the screen displayed each time. Despite ticking this the screen still appears each time along with a script error message. Is there any way to stop this?

After doing a scan an error log box comes up with a long list of Application Data files. Avast states that these have been unabled to be scanned as they are password protected. Could someone explain what and why this is, and if it is possible for a virus to still infect these files.?

I am having problems getting Avast to scan mail with my e-mail client which is Courier. I also use a smtp server. I have altered the default settings in the avast ini file and also Courier settings, and also added the PopListen and SmtpListen lines but I still can’t get it to work. This is one of the error logs I have had:-

Error - sent data: “”
Receive error: “554 Server ‘127.0.0.1’ unavailable” → Successful

Logging into the SMTP server as: “prairie-dog” → Successful
Error - sent data: “RSET”
Receive error: “503 bad sequence of commands”
Error - sent data: “RSET”
Receive error: “503 bad sequence of commands”
Disconnecting → Successful
Failed to send one or more pending messages.
Public.c[434] Smtp.dll
bad sequence of commands

Finally, when going into settings from the context menu and choosing scan, I can’t select which level of scan I want to do. I can only select once I have clicked the scan button.

Thanks in advance

2

To solve your Help problem - see this thread, please.

Some applications use password-protected zip files to store their private data (e.g. Norton CleanSweep, some spyware-removal tools, …). avast! cannot scan these files - because it doesn’t know the password (and you probably don’t know either :)) - so an appropriate message is generated.
Generally, it is unlikely that a virus would reside in a password protected zip. Without additional information, it’s not possible to say more.

If you have avast! Home version, you can’t change the scanning options for the Explorer extension (at least not anyhow “nicely”). If you have Pro version, you can edit the corresponding task (Explorer Extension) in the Enhanced User Interface (you have to have the option “Display special tasks” checked).

I can’t say anything about your e-mail problem… that’s a subject for Vojtech, I guess.

3

Thanks for the response, the screen has now disappeared after getting the patch.

I have another question for you. Which exe in the Avast directory do I use to scan downloads? I use Freshdownload which allows an antivirus to check files at completion of download but I don’t know which one to use.

Thanks

4

ashQuick scans areas specified on command line, each one separated by semicolon.

5

See this foruns:
http://www.avast.com/forum/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=1320;start=msg7337#msg7337
http://www.avast.com/forum/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=268;start=msg5869#msg5869
http://www.avast.com/forum/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=967;start=msg5172#msg5172

6

You can configure your mail program according to the example for Opera Mail:
http://www.avast.com/forum/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=1097;start=msg6056#msg6056