Really tired of babysitting scans

General Topics
1

I have discovered that it is helpful to have avast but the most annoying thing is that there seems to be no way to have the default move to chest just be done when a scan is being run.

Recently my firewall (comodo internet security - for those of you that would like to avoid it) turned off all of my other security stuff including this program. Now I’ve got a ton of viruses and malware that I need to get rid of. Because of this I am doing a thorough scan.

So, since most things just run on their own, and then at the end tell you “hey, these bad things were found. What would you like to do with them?” or they just do them on their own because you can set them up that way, I left the computer alone for about 8 hours. And when I came back there was an alert, telling me I had malware and asking me what I wanted to do with it, and recommending I move it to the chest (which it didn’t even do) and in the meantime it had completely stopped scanning.

It then started the scan again after the pop-up that killed the scan (momentarily) had been dealt with. And five hours later it was still scanning and at 0%.

I do not feel the need to sit in front of my computer for 72 hours straight (probably longer) babysitting this program so that my computer can be virus free. I won’t always be running a thorough scan but I still assume a regular scan in safe mode would take 24 hours. What can I do to make this program do what I want and quarantine the offending virus without having to sit and do nothing else for at least 72 hours?

I hope that someone can help Because honestly this is making me think that I need to find an av program that will do what I tell it to, and not take 72 hours to run a scan and refuse to allow me to tell it to quarantine something without my having to babysit the damn thing.

2

You can tell it in the scan options to apply a default action and specify what that would be.

3

Random,
What version of Avast are you using?
What is your OS?
Last, and maybe most important, what components of CIS were installed/are active?

This smells of interference by another security program, that or a fairly serious malware attack.

4

No it doesn’t. It just suggests that he needs to check the first box in the settings for the full scan and specify Move to Chest as the action to take. See attached pic.

5

Dch48, you may well be right.
But based on this:

Recently my firewall (comodo internet security - for those of you that would like to avoid it) turned off all of my other security stuff including this program. Now I’ve got a ton of viruses and malware that I need to get rid of. Because of this I am doing a thorough scan.

I’d say it’s worthy of further investigation. Wouldn’t you?

6

Thanks for the replies. Sorry I forgot the basic important information. Oops.

My avast doesn’t look like the included pic. I have Avast 4.8 home (there’s no make it do what you want option I could find there and when I try to update the program it tells me there is no new version available). OS: win xp sp3 and CIS is 4.1 (though when it made everything else disappear - which it hasn’t done again yet - it was 3.9).

The components for cis 3.9 were firewall and antivirus as it was a portion that made the firewall work better, and never acted as an av or interfered with avast, and defense plus. Now in 4.1 it has a sandbox in addition to the firewall, kinda av, and defense plus.

7
My avast doesn't look like the included pic. I have Avast 4.8 home (there's no make it do what you want option I could find there and when I try to update the program it tells me there is no new version available). OS: win xp sp3 and CIS is 4.1 (though when it made everything else disappear - which it hasn't done again yet - it was 3.9).

The components for cis 3.9 were firewall and antivirus as it was a portion that made the firewall work better, and never acted as an av or interfered with avast, and defense plus. Now in 4.1 it has a sandbox in addition to the firewall, kinda av, and defense plus.

I am fairly sure the entire post above explains the reason for your reported problems, possibly (very likely, in fact) including at least some of the reports of viruses you are receiving.

The virus reports are possibly real; it is equally as possible they are detections of definitions used by another program (CIS.) The sandbox is likely to be causing the problems with Avast being shut down.

Basically, you have some choices. Remove Avast, and stick with CIS, remove all but the firewall component of CIS, and continue using Avast 4.8 until it is no longer supported, or (the option I’d prefer if it was me) use Avast 5 with the firewall of your choice, which might or might not be Comodo.

The procedures involved in any of the choices are probably best achieved by a complete uninstall of all programs, running of cleaning tools (where available), followed by a selective install of those you choose to use.

More steps (if you would like them) can be posted when you indicate what your preference is.

If it were me, I’d download the latest Avast 5.0.594, (free version here )the Avast uninstall utility, a Comodo uninstall utility (if there is one)- a batch file is posted at the Comodo forum here - go offline, uninstall Avast, run the uninstall utility (get it here ), Reboot, uninstall Comodo, reboot, run the batch file, reboot, then install Avast 5, turn the Windows firewall on, go online again.

(I know I said I’d post the steps once you made your choice, but I decided to post the steps for my preferred choice, anyway. Hope you don’t mind.)

8

Possibly important edit to my post above:
Random, on second thoughts, having done a little more research, I recommend reading the full thread, especially page 5, at the Comodo forums (the one I linked) before running that batch file.
It may work, the uninstall routine may give problems.
If you have problems uninstalling Comodo, it can be seriously tiresome.
One of the suggestions was to remove just the firewall component in “add/remove programs” first, then rebooting, then removing the rest of it.

Any questions, please ask.

9

not sure how CIS behaves when CAV is installed, but when it’s not, it doesn’t turn off anything. That’s one thing. The other thing is that you’re saying that you now have a ton of viruses >>> where do they come from?

10

Ahh, yes that does sound strange. I’ve used the full package of Comodo and it never did that although there was a problem in the latest versions with portions of Avast! and other security programs being automatically sandboxed by their ridiculous implementation of the technology. It actually prevented Avast! from updating because it detected each update file as a new untrusted element, thus worthy of being sandboxed. It was not malware causing the problem, it was Comodo itself.

To the OP, you should definitely upgrade from 4.8 to the latest version. It’s much better. I would also suggest a clean install after completely uninstalling 4.8 and using the removal tool. Some people have had problems installing the new versions over the old one.

11

Please notice that the boot scan feature in Avast 5 is useless. The man is right, you must babysit because the “ignore” option has been removed.
I returned to Avast 4.8 which has this option. Avast claims that the automatic action options were removed because they could accidentially
remove system files. I do not see why this involves the “ignore” option. I hope that Avast are beware of this mistake and will reimplement this function
in Avast 5.1. :frowning:

12

Don’t post twice the same. Just double the effort of help.