I am on broadband, but I don’t have the computer on all the time, should I be ticking the permanently connected to the internet setting in the update connections section, or should I not tick any boxes?
I want to get this right so that I receive auto def updates with no problems attached.
No problems on checking the option that you’re permanently connected (not dial-up).
The permanent is the type of the connection and not the computer to be on/off 
Thanks, I have now ticked the permanently connected box.
Now that I have that box ticked, how often to these defs get auto updated?
Can I be sitting at the PC, and suddenly an update come in without me doing anything?
They aren’t so frequent that it will bug you, to get an idea of frequency, see avast! VPS Updates History.
Again many thanks DavidR
Generally, daily.
Well, you’ve already done something: set avast to automatic update ;D
And already Avast caught a virus and alerted me right away, so I stuck it in the virus chest then deleted it from there.
I noticed some system files were in there too, but read that is normal and that Avast puts critical system files in there to protect them, such as Winsock, Kernel and Command.
You have done the right thing to start with, ‘first do no harm’ don’t delete, send virus to the chest and investigate.
There is no rush to delete anything from the chest, a protected area where it can do no harm. Anything that you send to the chest you should leave there for a few weeks. If after that time you have suffered no adverse effects from moving these to the chest, scan them again (inside the chest) and if they are still detected as viruses, delete them.
If you were going to move it to the chest and delete immediately, you lose the purpose of the chest. The System Files section of the chest contains copies of important system files in case the original files became infected. No to protect them but to provide a back-up of them.
I take it that any infected file sent to the chest will be in a separate folder from the system files, because I kind of thought that if the infected files were near the system files they could possibly infect them, or is this not possible?
It’s just that when you click on the folder for ALL chest files you see the infected and system files together.
Thoughts please.
They are entirely separate in the Infected Files section. The avast chest is a protected area anyway so nothing could run/activate the infected files even if they weren’t separated. That is the whole point of the chest nothing can work/run with the files inside it. The file names are changed and the files are also encrypted.
The all chest file is just a collation of all information.
Thanks again DavidR,
Your welcome.