Web Shield Slows Downloads Significantly

I have a wireless connection thru a Belkin Router and an IBM laptop with built in b card. I am running Avast Home (free), win xp pro, sp2 , all latest patches.

I can see a large performance hit if Web Shield is enabled - I have a 6mbps/768kbs connection and should obtain about 5.5mpbs (limited by the b card). I have observed the following:

  1. Web Shield enabled - downloads (testmy.net) are “jumpy” and average around 3.8 to 4.5mbps

  2. Web Shield disabled - downloads avereage around 5.5+mbps

A couple of questions:

  1. Can this be fixed in future builds?

  2. Am I really hurting myself by disabling Web Shield since the standard stuff should catch any virus upon execution?

Thanks,
Harvey

Hi, well if Webshield is off, than Standard Shield should take over. If a shield such as Web shield did not detect the virus, than Standard shield will detect it because it detects any open and download file or programs.

Disabling the provider you’re not solving the problem… just pretending it does not exist.
A lot of nowadays malwares take advantage of various exploits and bugs of the browsers, especially Internet Explorer.
Letting avast scanning the HTTP streams through WebShield is the only way to prevent the infection.
Just setting the Standard Shield to High sensitivity (resident filesystem scanner) won’t solve… It will be too late.

Is there any hope that a fix will be forthcoming? I’m experiencing a 35% degradation in download speeds!

Thanks,
Harvey

I don’t feel any speed degradation with webshield. Just tested. The same download speed. ??? But maybe it’s because I have only 256/128 kbs connection. My test results with webshield: average speed 231 kbs, max speed 396 kbs; without webshield average speed was 237 kbs, max speed 404 kbs, so practically it’s the same speed. :slight_smile:

From a technical view, Web Shield shouldn’t slow down connection at all.
There is however caching delay for new yet uncached images and html files.