I updated to 4.8 last week and ran my first (regular Sunday morning) scan yesterday. It turns out that was the exact 4th anniversary of installing avast!!
The scan went normally with no problems found. It does look like the scan progress % may be a new feature.
I guess I won’t know until some rootkit activity is found whether it is working (home).
As usual, thanks avast! for a great product.
What was the scan sensitivity that you used on the on-demand scan ?
The Standard and Thorough scans do have the rootkit scan included in the scan but the Quick doesn’t.
I’m pretty sure I always use “Standard” with “Archives” off.
Would an occasional “Thorough” be beneficial?
Where will I see Rootkit results?
I have only ever done a through scan with archives once shortly after installation just to ensure a clean start state, but with XP for example avast will do a boot-time scan after installation if you select it, this I believe will be quicker and reasonably effective. Like everything in life things are a compromise.
Archive (zip, rar, etc.) files are by their nature are inert, you need to extract the files and then you have to run them to be a threat. Long before that happens avast’s Standard Shield should have scanned them and before an executable is run that is scanned. Thorough is also by its design very thorough and perhaps a little overkill for routine use, were a Standard scan without archives should be adequate.
There are no rootkit results if none are found if they were I guess all hell would break loose in a similar way to the normal virus detection. In the home version you don’t get much in the way of results either and those are lost after closing the on-demand scan interface.
What version are you using Home or Pro ?
The little “home” note on my first post wasn’t very noticable, but that is what I have.
My standard weekly on-demand scans usually take 40+ minutes, so I have never been tempted to set a boot time one. Are they shorter?
The boot-time scan really isn’t a replacement for on-demand, it is normally scheduled when you find a virus on your system that can’t be dealt with in the normal windows mode, file in use, protected, etc. Or you suspect an infection that may be hidden.
I don’t believe the boot-time scan scans as many as the on-demand scans so I wouldn’t suggest it as an option. I would just set the on-demand scan off and go and get my meal, read a bit and come back.
Gee, lots of little problems about. Of course the only time you hear about a program is when there are problems. I hope it’s just the minority.
I have avast on two computers (Win XP SP2) and no problems.
What if you have a virus and the boot-time scan detects it? How can you deal with it if you cannot eliminate it the usual way, in Windows? How do the boot-time scan results warn the user that a virus has been detected?
The boot-time scanner just prompts the usual question with possible actions (delete, move to chest, …)
They’re presented in “text mode”, but I don’t think it should be a problem.
See images, boot time scan and options if detection found. I don’t know if these changed at all with avast 4.8, but I took the pictures when I had 4.7, but you get the idea.
Sorry about the double post, I just realized my error. My question was answered in a previous post.
My bad.