I am new to using Avast v4.7 Home edition . I have read the good (and some bad) reviews, but I have been happy with it for the most part.
I have 3 questions/concerns.
This may seem strange, but I am concerned that avast is NOT being aggressive enough in terms of detecting network hijack attempts or viruses. Maybe I am comparing avast to Norton, which used to notify me about once per week that some IP address was attempting to access my computer, or would alert me of a possible virus every once in a while, or SOMETHING. However, it’s been 2+ months now, and I have not received ANY kind of notification from avast. I do get the updates. That’s fine. But I have received absolutely zero warnings, alerts, or the like. I highly doubt that the solution is simply that I am in a non-risk area. If I didn’t know better, I might think the real-time protection isn’t even on (but I assure you it is). Any comments/insight? Does norton simply have the reputation of being over aggressive?
When looking at the avast status, for the Network Shield resident provider, the “Last scanned” field is always blank (whereas all the standard or web shield always seem to be scanning something in the “last scanned” field). Why?
In the options, I have the “disable avast sounds” box checked. I do not have any other programs running that have sounds, yet I hear the brief “pop” alert sound every once in a while. Is that sound coming from avast? If so, what does it mean?
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).
Here the most important is if you use a firewall (that will block the attacks before avast NetShield) and if your operational system is updated.
Your firewall is blocking the attacks before. Network Shield protects you from internet worms that spread themselves via various security holes in your system. Typicaly these kind of viruses don’t infect files but instead they attack running processes on your PC (either Windows components or some server programs like SQL Server, IIS etc.). These kind of attacks are not easily catched by ordinary antivirus during file or mail scanning. It is not a duplicate work with Standard Shield. Basically, it covers all Internet worms. Such as Win32.CodeRed, Win32.SQLSlammer, Win32.Blaster, in32.Welchia (Nachi) and Win32.Sasser.
When do you listen? While using the skinned interface?
1. This may seem strange, but I am concerned that avast is NOT being aggressive enough in terms of detecting network hijack attempts or viruses. Maybe I am comparing avast to Norton, which used to notify me about once per week that some IP address was attempting to access my computer, or would alert me of a possible virus every once in a while, or SOMETHING. However, it's been 2+ months now, and I have not received ANY kind of notification from avast.
Well avast ‘isn’t’ a firewall it is an anti-virus application, so it won’t notify you about IP access attempts to your computer, for that you need a firewall.
As Tech mentions there is the network shield which provides limited protection against common attack vectors but it isn’t a replacement for or a full firewall.
Windows XP’s firewall is better than no firewall but, it lulls you into a false sense of protection, it doesn’t provide outbound protection. I would however, say you need to look at a third party firewall to protect against unauthorised outbound connections.
Whilst the windows XP firewall is usually good at keeping your ports stealthed (hidden) it provides no outbound protection and you should consider a third party firewall.
Any malware that manages to get past your defences will have free reign to connect to the internet to either download more of the same, pass your personal data (sensitive or otherwise, user names, passwords, keylogger retrieved data, etc.) or open a backdoor to your computer, so outbound protection is essential.
There are many freeware firewalls such as, Comodo, PCTools Firewall Plus, Jetico, etc. - Zone Alarm free works fine with avast and has a reasonably friendly user interface, however, the free version is becoming bloated with trial ware and is also crippled as far as outbound protection goes In the Program Control, configuration area, the slider will only goes as far as Medium protection, if you want more you have to buy the Pro version.