I’m ignorant about viruses, computer programming, and any related field, so I could use some help with a simple explanation of the utility of Avast’s heursitic sensitivities.
Could someone please tell me why I might choose Normal or High sensitivity?
If it helps to know a little about my antivirus needs, I’m a student and I use my computer for very general purposes: writing, surfing the internet, checking email, listening to music and occasionally downloading bittorrents. I don’t mean to be juvenile, but I’ll look at porn sometimes too, and I know this is probably putting my computer at even more risk, but I ain’t gonna stop that habit, so optimizing Avast! is important.
First Normal and High have nothing to do with heuristics, it is just the types of file that are scanned. Normal provided a good balance between protection and performance. I have the web shield and Internet mail set to High the others are Normal (for some providers there are no differences).
Currently there are only two areas where a form of heuristics are used, the Internet Mail provider and I would recommend that you have that at High as this also increases the heuristic checking. This may give you an indication if you have an undetected/hidden spambot sending out spam.
The other area is the anti-rootkit module that runs 8 minutes after boot and there are no user customisable settings in that.
The avast 5 version will have more but until then (aprox July 2009) there are only the ones mentioned above.
Yes p-o-r-n sites are more likely to have a higher risk of possible infection, ironic I know, but the web shield and network shield should provide adequate levels of protection.