I have been using the new version of AVAST! for a few months and it
seemed okay. Today it informed me of a program update which I allowed.
After rebooting the computer I could not access any newsgroups with my
newsreader. Suspecting the new update, I stopped the program
monitoring for a few minutes and tried again. This time my newsreader
got through.

I searched for the problem online and saw on the manufacturer's support
forum others reporting the same problem with older versions of the
program. The solution is to disable NNTP scanning in the mail module
or to download the modified mail module from the support site. The
provided link was not any good. I did not install the mail scanning
module in the original installation and did not have any way to change
the settings since the options were not there for the mail module.

Sorry to say AVAST! was uninstalled from my computer and now I am using
MSIE. I may go back to Avira again someday but I don't feel like
tweaking everything to stop the nag screen for now.

badgolferman wrote:
> I have been using the new version of AVAST! for a few months and it
> seemed okay. Today it informed me of a program update which I allowed.
> After rebooting the computer I could not access any newsgroups with my
> newsreader. Suspecting the new update, I stopped the program
> monitoring for a few minutes and tried again. This time my newsreader
> got through.
>
> I searched for the problem online and saw on the manufacturer's support
> forum others reporting the same problem with older versions of the
> program. The solution is to disable NNTP scanning in the mail module
> or to download the modified mail module from the support site. The
> provided link was not any good. I did not install the mail scanning
> module in the original installation and did not have any way to change
> the settings since the options were not there for the mail module.
>
> Sorry to say AVAST! was uninstalled from my computer and now I am using
> MSIE. I may go back to Avira again someday but I don't feel like
> tweaking everything to stop the nag screen for now.

Did you mean Microsoft Security Essentials?

FromTheRafters, 9/13/2011,9:34:51 PM, wrote:

> badgolferman wrote:
> > I have been using the new version of AVAST! for a few months and it
> > seemed okay. Today it informed me of a program update which I
> > allowed. After rebooting the computer I could not access any
> > newsgroups with my newsreader. Suspecting the new update, I
> > stopped the program monitoring for a few minutes and tried again.
> > This time my newsreader got through.
> >
> > I searched for the problem online and saw on the manufacturer's
> > support forum others reporting the same problem with older versions
> > of the program. The solution is to disable NNTP scanning in the
> > mail module or to download the modified mail module from the
> > support site. The provided link was not any good. I did not
> > install the mail scanning module in the original installation and
> > did not have any way to change the settings since the options were
> > not there for the mail module.
> >
> > Sorry to say AVAST! was uninstalled from my computer and now I am
> > using MSIE. I may go back to Avira again someday but I don't feel
> > like tweaking everything to stop the nag screen for now.
>
> Did you mean Microsoft Security Essentials?

Yes, I did.

badgolferman wrote:

> I have been using the new version of AVAST! for a few months and it
> seemed okay. Today it informed me of a program update which I allowed.
> After rebooting the computer I could not access any newsgroups with my
> newsreader. Suspecting the new update, I stopped the program
> monitoring for a few minutes and tried again. This time my newsreader
> got through.
>
> I searched for the problem online and saw on the manufacturer's support
> forum others reporting the same problem with older versions of the
> program. The solution is to disable NNTP scanning in the mail module
> or to download the modified mail module from the support site. The
> provided link was not any good. I did not install the mail scanning
> module in the original installation and did not have any way to change
> the settings since the options were not there for the mail module.
>
> Sorry to say AVAST! was uninstalled from my computer and now I am using
> MSIE. I may go back to Avira again someday but I don't feel like
> tweaking everything to stop the nag screen for now.

NNTP scanning, like e-mail scanning, is superfluous. It changes when
malicious content gets detected but not if it gets detected. I don't
bother installing several of the modules in Avast, including: mail
shield, P2P shield, and IM shield. That leaves me with just the file,
network, web, and behavior real-time shields because those are all you
need. The others are superfluous and simply bloat the product.

For now, I'm also not installing their script shield. There are
programs that have scripts used within them to define their behavior and
their script shield interferes with them. For example, the color scheme
employed by Windows Media Player is defined by a script that gets set to
select a value for the color theme but Avast's script shield interferes
with that internal script so WMP ends up with its default red color
scheme. They thought they fixed it in a later release but it still made
WMP as red for some users.

Their webrep (web reputation) plug-in for web browsers is pathetic. It
mimics the function of the WOT and McAfee SiteAdvisor toolbars. The
idea is to show a rating for web sites found in a search or that you
visit but these ratings are out of date (bad sites haven't been rated
yet, bad sites that changed to be good are still listed as bad, and good
sites get listed as bad because enough users bitched about them but
their reviews show they obviously don't have the brains to really know).
It doesn't take too long when using WOT, SiteAdvisor, or webrep to see
that the vast majority of sites aren't rated and of the few that are
rated there are too many that are incorrectly rated.

Don't bother installing Avast and then disable all the superfluous
shields as that results in Avast bitching with a red tray icon and
notification in its GUI that it's not providing full protection.
Uninstall Avast and then do a *custom* install where you only select to
include the file, network, web, and behavior shields.

badgolferman wrote:

> I have been using the new version of AVAST! for a few months and it
> seemed okay. Today it informed me of a program update which I
> allowed. After rebooting the computer I could not access any
> newsgroups with my newsreader. Suspecting the new update, I stopped
> the program monitoring for a few minutes and tried again. This time
> my newsreader got through.
>
> I searched for the problem online and saw on the manufacturer's
> support forum others reporting the same problem with older versions
> of the program. The solution is to disable NNTP scanning in the mail
> module or to download the modified mail module from the support site.
> The provided link was not any good. I did not install the mail
> scanning module in the original installation and did not have any way
> to change the settings since the options were not there for the mail
> module.
>
> Sorry to say AVAST! was uninstalled from my computer and now I am
> using MSIE. I may go back to Avira again someday but I don't feel
> like tweaking everything to stop the nag screen for now.

If you get the paid version of Avira there is no nag screen; I know,
what an odd concept to pay for something that works. I don't have an
issue paying for a product that works as intended, but that's just me.

--
Sir_George

VanguardLH, 9/14/2011,2:01:38 AM, wrote:

> Don't bother installing Avast and then disable all the superfluous
> shields as that results in Avast bitching with a red tray icon and
> notification in its GUI that it's not providing full protection.
> Uninstall Avast and then do a custom install where you only select to
> include the file, network, web, and behavior shields.

I DID do that in the first place. I never installed the mail, webrep,
IM shields because I don't use them. Yet the update seemingly did not
recognize that and blocked NNTP traffic, without giving me a way to
undo the blocking.

On Tue, 13 Sep 2011 21:29:28 -0400, "badgolferman"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>... I may go back to Avira again someday but I don't feel like
>tweaking everything to stop the nag screen for now.

I use this freeware firewall:
http://www.privacyware.com/PF_support.html

It blocks (the messages from) avnotify.exe (Avira)
:-)

--
Fred W. (NL)

On Tue, 13 Sep 2011 21:29:28 -0400, "badgolferman"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I have been using the new version of AVAST! for a few months and it
>seemed okay. Today it informed me of a program update which I allowed.
>After rebooting the computer I could not access any newsgroups with my
>newsreader. Suspecting the new update, I stopped the program
>monitoring for a few minutes and tried again. This time my newsreader
>got through.
>
>I searched for the problem online and saw on the manufacturer's support
>forum others reporting the same problem with older versions of the
>program. The solution is to disable NNTP scanning in the mail module
>or to download the modified mail module from the support site. The
>provided link was not any good. I did not install the mail scanning
>module in the original installation and did not have any way to change
>the settings since the options were not there for the mail module.
>
>Sorry to say AVAST! was uninstalled from my computer and now I am using
>MSIE. I may go back to Avira again someday but I don't feel like
>tweaking everything to stop the nag screen for now.

If you want to give Avast another chance, take a look at the "Expert
Settings" under the Mail Shield tab. The Mail Shield may be redirecting
your NNTP traffic over the NNTPS (SSL) port 563 instead of the plaintext
NNTP at 119. If your box or your firewall or the corporate firewall or
the NNTP server or ... isn't happy with NNTPS then the connection will
fail. The Expert Settings tab will let you choose no encryption and the
regular port 119, which may restore your Usenet access.

--
Rich Webb Norfolk, VA

On Tue, 13 Sep 2011 21:29:28 -0400, badgolferman wrote:

> Sorry to say AVAST! was uninstalled from my computer and now I am using
> MSIE. I may go back to Avira again someday but I don't feel like
> tweaking everything to stop the nag screen for now.

You could have simply unchecked the NNTP scan option... I don't see the
problem.

--
s|b

On Wed, 14 Sep 2011 01:01:38 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

> Don't bother installing Avast and then disable all the superfluous
> shields as that results in Avast bitching with a red tray icon and
> notification in its GUI that it's not providing full protection.

You can change the settings so it doesn't warn you about those disabled
shields anymore. Uninstall and custom reinstall isn't necessary.

--
s|b