So, I have been spending some time tweaking my laptop, and I came to the point where I start to disable everything I don’t really need.
So, I was hoping someone could provide with some details and reason(s) whether it is safe to disable the following shields or not;
*P2P Shield
I don’t use any P2P programs such as utorrent or bittorrent, but I do use some file sharing sites such as Megaupload and Fileserve.
*IM Shield
Is this for programs such as Xfire and MSN? Also, does this shield applies on browsers?
I don’t use MSN or any IM programs really, but I do use Google Chat and MSN in my browser.
Mail shield
I was wondering if this shield can work with Google Desktop, and if so how to set this up.
P2P and IM Shields work with the corresponding programs. If you don’t use them, you can disable (or even uninstall that Shields).
Mail Shield is for email clients (programs like MS Outlook, Thunderbird) and are not related to Google Desktop.
I uninstalled the P2P and IM shields as I don’t use either type of associated program, though don’t expect to see any resource benefit as if it isn’t in use it isn’t going to be using any and disk space would be negligible.
Re the Mail Shield, don’t see any connection with the Google Desktop (which has I believe now been abandoned by google) ?
If the connection is google desktop accessing gmail, then no it doesn’t as it isn’t using the email protocols (required by the mail shield) but the web browser http protocol that is covered by the Web Shield (if not using https).
However, leave the Mail Shield running
Should your system ever get a hidden/undetected trojan spambot, the first indication of the fact you are sending out spam could well be the Mail Shield intercepting outbound email for scanning. I would go a step further and suggest you set the Heuristic Sensitivity to High.
As of September 14, Google Desktop will no longer be available for download, and existing installations will not be updated to include new features or fixes.
Still, the first time I rebooted Avast! after installation, I received a message saying something about ssl tls so it did seem like it found and tried to made connection with Google Desktop, and I have no email clients installed.
If you need them in the future it is just as easy to install them using add remove programs, change/remove and Change, by unchecking or checking the Shield you can either uninstall/Install it.
If you just disable a shield it avast will pester you as it is disabled and you have to take additional measures, avastUI, Settings, Status Bar, Components Monitored and uncheck those you disabled to stop the nag.
Update on your original questions - The IM stands for Instant Messaging so it is for messaging applications.
I don’t use google desktop so I can’t say how it connects to gmail or what protocol it uses, if it uses the standard email protocols (pop3, smtp or imap) then avast’s mail shield would try to monitor it. If that is using a secure connection to check gmail (SSL, secure encrypted connection), then avast wouldn’t be able to monitor it, that is the whol;e point of SSL.
