Problem with scanning

Hi, I’m new here. I’ve been having this problem with Avast ever since I installed it. How long should a full scan take? I started scaning at 11 this morning & it has only just finished at 10pm. It takes this long every time. I used to have Norton & that only took about 2hours, so why is this taking so long each time? Any help would be appreciated as its driving me crazy.
Terri

That’s slow. Mine takes about half an hour.

Besides what Nicola S asked, how did you remove norton? Did you use their removal tools?

Check out this response to the same question http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=25365.msg207398#msg207398, hint forum search function, there is a wealth of information on the forums ;D

Welcome to the forums.

A link worth looking at, which is a program removal tool that can remove the remnants of a number of different Norton Programs:
Removing your Norton program using SymNRT
You can also download SymNRT, a Norton uninstall tool that uninstalls all Norton 2004/2005/2006 products.

I’m not sure what my pc is as its a bitser m son made me, it has an AMD Athlon processor, I run windows xp & AOL.
I can’t remember if I actually used the norton removal tool or not, as my motherboard died just after I uninstalled it from my programs.

You can use it at any time, I mean, even after uninstalling Norton by the Control Panel > Add/Remove programs applet.

ok I will give it a go & see if that cures the problem. Fingers crossed. Thankyou

I ran the norton removal tool & set Avast to do a full scan at 1.30 today, its now 5pm & its still going. Do you think I should uninstal Avast & then d/l it again?

No, uninstalling and reinstalling might not make any difference I believe, but you certainly wouldn’t have to download it again. If you chose to reinstall just use the setup file you downloaded already, uninstall, reboot, install, reboot.

At no point do you mention what type of scan or settings it is that you are doing ?

I assume by full you mean, Local Disks, and I’m guessing you have the Sensitivity set to Thorough and include Archives ?

Archive (zip, 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.

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.

I usually do a thorough scan choosing all of my computer to scan. I will try a standard next time & see if that is quicker, I will also set it to do a boot time scan. Thankyou for your help.
Terri

Your welcome.

:slight_smile: Hi Terri :

 Avast MAY have problems with those using AOL !? Have you read the info at :  www.avast.com/eng/webshield_issues.html  !?  Particularly :

" Q: I use the 'AOL browser' for web browsing and reading emails via the 'AOL' Web mail. Does avast! Web Shield work with this program? 

When I check the scanned count number on Web Shield configuration page, it always shows 0.

A:

Sorry, Web Shield cannot scan connections from AOL browser. It is however capable of protecting standard browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, …) used with the AOL dial-up or broadband services. "