B
BillR
I was looking back through some messages and ran across a few threads that
complained about avast! notification. One Brit complained about being
notified by an "American voice;" another, of how loud messages were; and two
more, that there were voices / sounds at all. avast! is actually one of the
easiest to change as it provides explicit menus to do so.
A while back, I changed several of the messages to suit me in avast!, Spybot
S&D, and some others. For example, there was (is) an obnoxious malware
found message that starts out with a siren sound that used to make me jump.
It is now slightly less obnoxious and much less startling as I decreased the
volume of the siren. Another one had an alarming message that startled me
but didn't inform me which package was raising the error. One of the games
I sometimes play suppresses tray notifications but allows sound events.
Consequently I modified the avast! updated database message to reduce the
initial volume and to repeat the spoken message. I've completely replaced
other messages with my own recorded voice (though sounding rather strange to
my ear). I usually start softly, give the message, identify the application
generating the message, and then repeat the message in a louder voice.
The most common modifications are to decrease the initial sound and to add
the package name. I sometimes run several anti-malware applications at the
same time. For example, I sometimes go off-line and run Antidote, AntiVir,
avast!, AVG, Ad-aware, Spybot S&D, A2, Ewido, SpyHunter, and SwatIt while I
make dinner, wash dishes, and watch a movie. I like to know when an
application has finished and am not good at remembering which beep goes with
which product.
You may use your favorite tools to change the messages and sound events, but
even a default installation of Windows has a quite basic sound editor in
Accessories that will suffice. You can find the appropriate files fairly
easily. Some applications provide ready access via settings or options
(e.g., avast! system menu, settings, sounds, to turn off sounds in avast!;
settings button, Sounds and Multimedia Properties, scroll to avast!, to play
event sounds and messages.) For other applications, you may have to poke
around in Program Files (e.g., "c:\Program
Files\AntiMalware\Avast4\ENGLISH\*.wav" in my case). Either way, once you
have identified the sound files, you can rename the existing file(s) and
replace them with your own.
complained about avast! notification. One Brit complained about being
notified by an "American voice;" another, of how loud messages were; and two
more, that there were voices / sounds at all. avast! is actually one of the
easiest to change as it provides explicit menus to do so.
A while back, I changed several of the messages to suit me in avast!, Spybot
S&D, and some others. For example, there was (is) an obnoxious malware
found message that starts out with a siren sound that used to make me jump.
It is now slightly less obnoxious and much less startling as I decreased the
volume of the siren. Another one had an alarming message that startled me
but didn't inform me which package was raising the error. One of the games
I sometimes play suppresses tray notifications but allows sound events.
Consequently I modified the avast! updated database message to reduce the
initial volume and to repeat the spoken message. I've completely replaced
other messages with my own recorded voice (though sounding rather strange to
my ear). I usually start softly, give the message, identify the application
generating the message, and then repeat the message in a louder voice.
The most common modifications are to decrease the initial sound and to add
the package name. I sometimes run several anti-malware applications at the
same time. For example, I sometimes go off-line and run Antidote, AntiVir,
avast!, AVG, Ad-aware, Spybot S&D, A2, Ewido, SpyHunter, and SwatIt while I
make dinner, wash dishes, and watch a movie. I like to know when an
application has finished and am not good at remembering which beep goes with
which product.
You may use your favorite tools to change the messages and sound events, but
even a default installation of Windows has a quite basic sound editor in
Accessories that will suffice. You can find the appropriate files fairly
easily. Some applications provide ready access via settings or options
(e.g., avast! system menu, settings, sounds, to turn off sounds in avast!;
settings button, Sounds and Multimedia Properties, scroll to avast!, to play
event sounds and messages.) For other applications, you may have to poke
around in Program Files (e.g., "c:\Program
Files\AntiMalware\Avast4\ENGLISH\*.wav" in my case). Either way, once you
have identified the sound files, you can rename the existing file(s) and
replace them with your own.