two burning (for me) questions about Avast

General Topics
1

My computer has changed recently in two ways. I need to know if this is because of something Avast is doing.

  1. Web pages are loading very slowly, as if Avast or something is previewing them before they appear.
  2. Files on my computer are all set as “read only.” If I right click and take that attribute off, it just comes back.

I welcome any suggestions about this.

2
  1. avast scans http web pages/traffic before they are saved/displayed in your browser. However it should have no adverse effect unless you are on very fast broadband (100Mbps). I see no impact and my connections (on testing) is in the region of 37Mbps.

What other security software do you have installed, e.g. firewall, anti-spyware (previous AV), etc. ?

  1. totally unrelated to avast, it doesn’t change file attributes. The only files it would protect are its own program files.
3

Seems to me if some (all?) files on your computer have been changed to read-only, this could affect writing data to the hard disk? Possible reason for the slowdown? Did you do a system restore recently?

See these two websites and read through both; ownership of files may be an issue or UAC setting level?

http://discussions.virtualdr.com/showthread.php?t=247453

& http://itexpertvoice.com/home/fixing-the-windows-7-read-only-folder-blues/

Information on your operating system and service pack would be helpful.