When I surf the internet with Internet Explorer 8 or the latest Firefox, the web pages are scanned by the Web Shield (I’m using avast! 4.8 free edition) as it should be.
I recently started using the K-Meleon browser (version 1.5.3) for its much better speed and memory usage. I notice that when using K-Meleon, the web pages being loaded are being scanned by the Network Shield and not the Web Shield as in case of IE / Firefox.
I’m wondering why this is so. Im using Vista so the web scanning is supposed to be transparent, i.e. no manual settings due on my part. So ideally the scanning should be done by the Web Shield and not the Network Shield as it is in my case.
Further, given that the Network Shield is meant for Internet Worms, am I losing protection in this case because K-Meleon’s web traffic is being scanned by the Network shield and not Web Shield? I mean in case of Html based exploits / malicious web pages etc, the web scanner doesnt come into the picture since Net Shield is scanning all K-Meleon traffic.
Any ideas where I am going wrong? Or any workarounds in this case?
K-Meleon may not be a supported browser in the web shield.
You can set the browser manually to use the web shields proxy so it is scanned, see example for firefox link below. You will have to find the corresponding function in k-meleon.
The method of manually adding the local proxy seems to be working. Will check a little further and let you guys know.
Independently of the manual method, I also tried editing the INI file as Scott had suggested. This unfortunately has not worked in my case. I did things as instructed, the ini text inserted was this:
" OptinProcess=<C:\Program Files\K-Meleon\k-meleon.exe> " (without the quotes )
Just wanted to let you guys know.
Thanks
Satish
EDIT
@ Scott,
With the default settings (without implementing your / David’s suggestions), the Eicar file gets picked up by the Standard Shield when the browser tries saving it to the hard drive, the Web Shield doesn’t pick it up.
I have tried both the manual settings method as well as the one that involves the change to the avast .ini file.
In both the cases, the web shield does start functioning. However, the eicar.com file on the eicar test-file page is still being picked up by the Standard Shield and not the Web Shield.
In case you folks have any other things that I might try out, then please do let me know.
The bottom line is that I feel that this is a relatively minor issue. As long as the suspect file is being picked up by one of the Shields, I will be safe. Only that I was curious why avast! is not working as advertised in case of K-Meleon. After all K-Meleon shares a lot of its code with Firefox.
Thanks again for your time and help.
Regards
Satish
EDIT
Ofcourse avast! works as it should in case of IE / Firefox. eicar.com is picked up by the web shield and I get the option to abort the connection…
Well I wouldn’t say a minor issue as the web shield provide a great deal of protection and if you can get and k-meleon working together all the better.
Personally I would leave the avast4.ini modification alone, reverse the new line you placed there and save it.
Setting the browser proxy for HTTP to use the web shield proxy, which as you say was working, will hopefully work again. With these manual adjustments it is best to only try one and see if that works.
Just downloaded it and tested the INI addition, and it is not just you…
Seems that the ini doesn’t work…
BUT DavidR’s suggestion does:
-Open K-Meleon,
-Tools → Proxy → Configure
-In window that opens → click ‘New Confiuration’ (circled in red in image)
-Type Localhost and 12080 into th relevant boxes (highlighted in yellow)
-Click save (circled in yellow)
I was just wondering if there might be some intermediary file, but it seems there is just the k-meleon.exe.
In my example I placed the OptinProcess line directly under the [WebScanner], but in theory it shouldn’t matter so long it is before the next section Header.
OK guys, I downloaded k-mellon and I’m using it right now (not that my first impression compared to firefox is that good), but I have added k-meleon.exe to my OptinPtocess list, as I said I had Chrome still in there so I just added the k-meleon.exe.
[WebScanner]
OptinProcess=chrome.exe,k-meleon.exe
And I don’t know what I did wrong, but it is working for me with the web shield scaning my browsing in k-meleon. I didn’t change the proxy settings in k-meleon.
I did a change and removed chrome.exe, leaving only k-meleon.exe and that still works.
So I guess that having made the you didn’t terminate the web shield and then restart it. By not doing that the web shield would still be using the old avast4.ini settings, so it won’t work. If you rebooted that would have the same effect as the new avast4.ini settings would be loaded.
Let me know if doing that gets it working for you.
Signing off from k-meleon, I feel naked without my NoScript and oodles of other firefox ad-ons ;D
Thanks to the suggestions provided by David and Scott, I have managed to get avast! to work with K-Meleon. In the screenshot below, you can see avast! Web Shield in action, offering to block the connection to a harmful webpage. I have blanked out the web address of the same.
And by the way Scott and David, you will find the no-script and ad-block add-ons for K-Meleon too.
Just that it requires a little more tweaking to get it to your liking unlike Firefox. However, the browser’s performance more than makes up for the initial inconvenience involved in tweaking it. I use a lot of gmail and open up plenty of tabs while browsing. Firefox and IE are slow as molasses when compared to K-Meleon. Now, I shall stop evangelizing K-Meleon usage. 8)
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