How often should a “Full System Scan” be done. I personally use a “Custom Scan” and run a scan each day I use the net. I use the “Persistent Cache” for quicker scans. I keep the results for a few weeks then delete. I don’t even notice the scan running. The scan takes less than twenty minutes. In the six months I have had avast (I was using AVG) I have encountered only one threat and it was a low risk threat. Of course I was testing the efficacy of avast and went looking for a virus. I found one. As I mentioned it was a low risk virus and was put in jail (virus chest). I have never had a FP, it has been “No Threat Detected” since then. I no longer look for any virus of any kind. avast resident shields work.
That little bit is why I keep manual scans at once a week(quick scan…full once a month). I just do not see the need as much when the resident shields are constantly scanning everything that is running. I use Malwarebytes for most on-demand scanning.
When I had AVG they had the resident shields which didn’t work. Because of past history I got onto the habit of scanning every day. I use MBAM once a week. Yes I am Para-Noid about getting a virus. Maybe too paranoid.
You are on an AV/security forum…you have plenty of company there ;D
At first I thought hanging out in places like this might serve to make me more paranoid…but just the opposite seems to be happening, proving the old human fault of fearing what we don’t understand.
I dont do regular scans…i use the screen-saver scan…works for me 
I scan only about once every two weeks, or even once a month, without a particular schedule, and then it is usually a quick scan. About the same sort of frequency I’ll scan with MalwareBytes, once again, a quick scan.
When Avast is first installed on a system I’ll run a full scan with persistent caching, and I expect that’s the last full scan I’m likely to do.
Over recent times,going back more than a year, it seems nothing is ever found. The scan with MBAM is mainly as a second opinion, to make sure the “no threat detected” message is indeed valid. (All scanners can miss the odd one now and then. Getting a second opinion reduces the odds of that.)
I’d only scan more than that if weird “symptoms” started to occur, that couldn’t be explained by something else.
I run a quickscan nightly and a full scan once a week. They are scheduled to happen while I’m sleeping, so excessive scanning doesn’t effect the use of my system and I sleep better at night. This may be a little much for some, but for me it works well.
I do Quick scans every week, and Full scans once a month. I have MBAM as a back up on-demand; and PrevX resident which scans daily.
The scan that detected a “threat” was only a PUP. Yes, I fully trust avast, I feel “it’s better safe than sorry”. I just want to be sure.
That’s the problem when doing custom scans with PUPs and other extensive scan options, archives, memory, etc. then you are likely to get detections that you aren’t familiar with.
I have the free version so I don’t have “screen saver” mode.
Believe it or not, I happen to know what a PUP is. And decided to send it to the chest. I don’t want to give anything potentially hazardous a chance.
Yes you do, I have it if I want to use it and I have avast free, see image.
It isn’t so much knowing what the abbreviation of PUP is, but rather knowing what the detection is, what is the PUP used for, did you install it, etc. As there are many legitimate tools that are considered PUPs as they can be used for good or evil so you have to know why it is on your system and what purpose it is used for. That is how to determine if you want to exclude the PUP from scans or remove it.
The PUP was malware.