Why does Avast ping my router?

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Checking my firewall logs I’m seeing denied ICMP requests from 74.55.71.86 (a603sm.avast.com), 70.85.97.154 (a666sm.avast.com), etc…going to my outside interface. This occurs multiple times a minute. Is this part of the web scanning? Does Avast do a ping back after it does a check for new virus signatures or something? Is there a way to turn this off? Thanks.

2

avast checks if there is an available connection each 40 seconds.
If there isn’t, wait more 40 seconds to check. Checking does not take more than one second and, of course, does not use the Internet band.
If there is a connection, check for an update. If there is not any new file to download, wait 4 hours to start checking again. If there is an available update, start it and install it. Again, wait 4 hours to check the next time.

You can configure the update to manual (both program and virus database), although I do not recommend. What’s the problem with that connections?

3

Are you an Avast member/user or employee?

Your software, and or Avast keeps pinging me… why??

Yes its every 40th second! The time i write this i have accepted every ping, but i keep getting them!

I have logs from my firewall to prove it if you want.

STOP it or i will change AV! I even got the PRO version… damn it!

4

avast pings to know if there is a connection and start the update.
Set update to manual if you want…

What’s the matter of pinging?

5

You wrote:

avast checks if there is an available connection each 40 seconds. If there isn't, wait more 40 seconds to check.
If there is a connection, check for an update. If there is not any new file to download, wait 4 hours to start checking again.

This is NOT the case! I get a ping every 40th second, and i have about 30+ rules now in my Firewall just to allow Avast. Check with your devs!

Regards
A happy Avast user

6

Guys,

a few things here:

  1. starting with the latest version (5.0.677) we got rid of the “pings” (i.e. ICMP packets) as a means of detecting whether the computer is online. I.e. update to the latest version and there should be no issue.

  2. even in the previous versions, the ICMP packets are of course generated by the software running on your computer (and answered by the server), not vice versa. These are standard ping packets, nothing unusual. If your firewall doesn’t support stateful inspection (and hence considers the reply packets as initiated by the server) there’s not much we can do about that – but that’s not really how the firewall is supposed to work.

  3. even in the previous versions, there’s a way to get rid of the pings. Just go to avast settings → Updates and check the “My computer is permanently connected to the Internet” box.

Thanks
Vlk

7

Thanks for the input Vlk.
I’ve forgotten the “always connected” trick :slight_smile: