Latest version of Free Avast Anti-Virus (WHERE is the “About” on the applicaton that tells me the Version number?).
Windows Vista Home Premium.
Re: the Web Shield:
I’ve been looking for ways to speed up my web browsing.
Looking at the “Expert Settings” for the Web Shield, I see:
“EXCLUSIONS” and a check box for “URLs to exclude”.
If I enter the urls of all of the websites I visit frequently and which I feel are safe, will this speed up my web browsing?
Still in “Web Shield” - “Expert Settings” / "Web Scanning, it states under “Scan All Files” -
“… This is the safest option but could also slow down your web browsing”.
I am currently trying to speed up my web browsing.
But I have no idea what files to include/exclude.
Any suggestions?
Still in “Web Shield”/“Expert Settings” - “Sensitivity” -
I have it set on the default - “Normal”.
Will it speed up my web browsing if I reduce that to “Low”?
Will that be safe? I have no idea of the difference between “Normal” and “Low”, and what sort of dangers I’m exposing myself to at that point.
Also trying to make sure I understand what the above means.
When “Web Scanning” speaks of scanning all downloaded files, is that referring to or including all website pages which I want to browse? (Temporary Internet Files).
When “Exclusions” refers to “URLs to exclude”, does that mean it will not be scanning website pages if I specify a URL to exclude?
Open Avast!>>Summary>>Current Status for current program/database ver. number.
IF the web shield is slowing down browsing, and it should not normally, than maybe adding exclusions would help. I would not do this, as no web sites are safe. Some are just more accountable than others.
The Sensitivity slider you speak of is for “heuristics”, a sort of system monitor that tries to determine bad behavior of malware. Useful for stopping virus that is not in the Avast! database yet. The farther you turn this up, the more likely it is to flag friendly programs as bad. I have always left as is, no problems.
The WebShield scans http content, cant scan https, for example.
You are correct that by excluding a URL, the WebShield will not scan any content from that site.
Be very careful of playing in the expert settings. As far as I’m aware there is no “reset to default setting” option, short of reinstalling. So if you do something wrong, and forget exactly what you changed…
Avast! is highly configurable, but the defaults are good and user friendly. Read the helpfile and this>> http://support.avast.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=view, before you go further, I would recommend.
Gargamel360 is correct in leaving things at the default settings unless you really know what you are doing since there currently is no restore to default button to reset the settings you have changed.
You also wanted to know in your first post where to find the version number. You can find this on the avast GUI Summary page (main page) in addition to Maintenance page. “About Avast” is found under Maintenance, but Maintenance Update gives you more information.
Another way to get there: if you right-click on the tool-tray icon, one of the menu choices is “About”, which takes you to that same Maintenance/about page.
@ Bosco123456, just keep in mind that the link given to you in the previous post may help your problem but this is a “pre-release” version of Avast. It has helped others, but there may still bugs to be worked out for a few.