web shield

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Can someone please explaine why web shield is scanning pagese even when im not on the net?

I noticed the avast icon spinning and couldnt work out why it would be running when nothings happening.

I seems when - scan web (HTTP) traffic - is ticked its scanning something,
The pages scanned/infected at the bottom keeps going up, and last page scanned shows as -
http://196.254.255.1:80/mpnd/progress

Why on earth is it scanning something when im not even web browsing?
And what is it scanning?

if i untick Scan web it stops.

2

Because it scans any application that access using http.
You can set avast to scan only browsers into Web Shield settings.

You can see at the bottom of Web Shield panel.

3

The web shield monitors and redirects http traffic and that doesn’t just have to be when you are browsing. Some programs connect to the internet using http and don’t so it using your browser.

Do you know what this mpnd is ?
All I can find is it appears to be a possibility is mpnd = Microsoft Developer Network Platforms, ring any bells.

Though this IP also belongs to an IP block reserved for future projects, in the afrinic.net domain registration area, weird.

4

Isn’t this an unusual address? I have never seen one before with 6 sets of numbers separated by five dots

To my knowledge both IPv4 and IPv6 have only three dots in their respective addresses.

Can anyone explain the numerical structure of this address and why it has five dots? Thanks

5

It isn’t unusual (and doesn’t have 6 sets of numbers), as the :80 at the end of it is the port to/being use/d and is nothing to do with the IP address which is IPv4 format.

6

Thanks for the explanation. I appreciate it. :slight_smile: