Avast 4.6 - This is an improvement?

[Moe Hair]

Ever since I've upgraded to Avast 4.6 yesterday, I've been having problems
loading binary newsgroups. Something is amiss is their standard shield.
The groups either don't load or take forever, and my web browser has slowed
down considerably, with loads of cookies being blocked for such benign
sites as dslreports.com.

Before I go to the Avast website and spend hours searching for answers, is
there a simple, yet safe setup which will allow me solve the problem. I've
noticed that they have added a webshield.

Does anyone know how to customize the standard shield so that it won't scan
media files?

 

[History Fan]

I can't answer most of your questions, but I did turn off the new Web
Shield because it slowed down my Internet connection.

 

[Moe Hair]

I can't answer most of your questions, but I did turn off the
new Web
Shield because it slowed down my Internet connection.

except that I think the standard shield is responsible for the newsgroup
scanning.

 

[optikl]

except that I think the standard shield is responsible for the newsgroup
scanning.

Really? I thought the web shield was responsible for that.

 

[Moe Hair]

Really? I thought the web shield was responsible for that.

my mistake. I thought you were referring to newsreaders. The standard
shield seems to slow that down. The web shield appears to handle the net,
although I'm not yet sure what it exactly does.

 

[Martin]

my mistake. I thought you were referring to newsreaders. The standard
shield seems to slow that down. The web shield appears to handle the net,
although I'm not yet sure what it exactly does.

Internet Mail handles the newsgroup scanning...

Web Shield handles the scanning of websites, etc.

Although I personally haven't noticed any great decrease in speed (in fact
some websites are actually loading better than before!!) you could just turn
those functions off, as they weren't part of Avast before anyway!!

Or, just customise them - right click the Avast icon and select "On-Access
Protection Control" then in "Web Shield" (click "Customize") you can specify
the "Exceptions" that in wont scan, and also in "Internet Mail" ->
"Customize" then the "NNTP" tab you can disable the newsgroup scanning.

HTH

 

[What's in a Name?]

Internet Mail handles the newsgroup scanning...

Web Shield handles the scanning of websites, etc.

Although I personally haven't noticed any great decrease in speed (in fact
some websites are actually loading better than before!!) you could just turn
those functions off, as they weren't part of Avast before anyway!!

Or, just customise them - right click the Avast icon and select "On-Access
Protection Control" then in "Web Shield" (click "Customize") you can specify
the "Exceptions" that in wont scan, and also in "Internet Mail" ->
"Customize" then the "NNTP" tab you can disable the newsgroup scanning.

HTH

Have you checked your firewall since installing 4.6 using something such
as LeakTest? I found Avast to override Sygate firewall. I hope they get
it sorted out soon.
-max

 

[Martin]

Martin wrote: [SNIP]Have you checked your firewall since installing 4.6 using something such
as LeakTest? I found Avast to override Sygate firewall. I hope they get it
sorted out soon.
-max

No changes to Zone Alarm Pro - LeakTest returns no connection as it did
before. Maybe it's an issue with Sygate rather than Avast?

As I said earlier, I've actually found things run better since 4.6 update,
which sounds strange I know but I can only guess that since the update Avast
may be running more efficiently????

Running XP Pro SP2, Athlon 2000+XP, 256MB RAM, Zone Alarm Pro and Avast
Pro....

Cheers

 

[Moe Hair]

Or, just customise them - right click the Avast icon and select
"On-Access Protection Control" then in "Web Shield" (click
"Customize") you can specify the "Exceptions" that in wont scan, and
also in "Internet Mail" -> "Customize" then the "NNTP" tab you can
disable the newsgroup scanning.

thanks for the advice. In the meantime, I can't even get to the Avast
Forums. Both my IE and Firefox browsers hang hang while trying to reach
this address:

http://forum.avast.com/

 

[Martin]

thanks for the advice. In the meantime, I can't even get to the Avast
Forums. Both my IE and Firefox browsers hang hang while trying to reach
this address:

http://forum.avast.com/

Hmm - no probs accessing that from here using IE, Avast Pro and ZA Pro.
Sounds like you certainly have some things clashing somewhere!!!

Good luck..

 

[Lars-Erik Østerud]

History Fan skrev:

I can't answer most of your questions, but I did turn off the new Web
Shield because it slowed down my Internet connection.

What speed, I have 1M line and I notice nothing.

 

[Moe Hair]

Hmm - no probs accessing that from here using IE, Avast Pro and ZA Pro.
Sounds like you certainly have some things clashing somewhere!!!

you're right - when I remove Zone Alarm pro - all the problems are gone.
I'll probably do a re-install of Zone Alarm and see what happens.

 

[Patty]

Ever since I've upgraded to Avast 4.6 yesterday, I've been having problems
loading binary newsgroups. Something is amiss is their standard shield.
The groups either don't load or take forever, and my web browser has slowed
down considerably, with loads of cookies being blocked for such benign
sites as dslreports.com.

Before I go to the Avast website and spend hours searching for answers, is
there a simple, yet safe setup which will allow me solve the problem. I've
noticed that they have added a webshield.

Does anyone know how to customize the standard shield so that it won't scan
media files?

There is a known conflict between Avast WebShield and ZoneAlarm Firewall.
Avast is aware of it and there are many posts in their forum. I
experienced all kinds of problems with my browsers (Internet Explorer and
Firefox) and even went so far as to uninstall and reinstall Firefox,
uninstall and reinstall ZoneAlarm Pro and still had problems. It turns out
that the new WebShield feature of Avast is conflicting with the Privacy
feature (cookies and pop-ups) in ZoneAlarm. If you set both of those to
off, your internet access will go back to normal. However, I did not
notice any problem with either email (Eudora) or newsgroup reader access
(40tude Dialog).

Patty

 

[Patty]

Martin wrote: [SNIP]Have you checked your firewall since installing 4.6 using something such
as LeakTest? I found Avast to override Sygate firewall. I hope they get it
sorted out soon.
-max

No changes to Zone Alarm Pro - LeakTest returns no connection as it did
before. Maybe it's an issue with Sygate rather than Avast?

As I said earlier, I've actually found things run better since 4.6 update,
which sounds strange I know but I can only guess that since the update Avast
may be running more efficiently????

Running XP Pro SP2, Athlon 2000+XP, 256MB RAM, Zone Alarm Pro and Avast
Pro....

Cheers

ZoneAlarm Pro has a known conflict with the new Avast WebShield if you have
cookie and pop-up blocking set in ZoneAlarm's Privacy.

Patty

 

[Patty]

you're right - when I remove Zone Alarm pro - all the problems are gone.
I'll probably do a re-install of Zone Alarm and see what happens.

I already went through all this yesterday. Try setting the cookie and
pop-up ad blocking in ZoneAlarm Pro to None in the Privacy setting and see
if that solves your problems.

Patty

 

[Moe Hair]

There is a known conflict between Avast WebShield and ZoneAlarm
Firewall. Avast is aware of it and there are many posts in their
forum. I experienced all kinds of problems with my browsers (Internet
Explorer and Firefox) and even went so far as to uninstall and
reinstall Firefox, uninstall and reinstall ZoneAlarm Pro and still had
problems. It turns out that the new WebShield feature of Avast is
conflicting with the Privacy feature (cookies and pop-ups) in
ZoneAlarm. If you set both of those to off, your internet access will
go back to normal. However, I did not notice any problem with either
email (Eudora) or newsgroup reader access (40tude Dialog).

Patty

Thanks for confirming the problem. I wasted all kinds of time yesterday
doing scans. See my later post from the Avast board regarding the Zone
Alarm problems, btw. They posted it this morning rather than last night
which would have saved me a number of problems. They're mail patch that
was just released solved my newsreader problems, although I'm getting all
kinds of time outs after just a minute of inactivity.

The problem with the turning off cookie protection is that you're leaving
your system open to loads of spy cookies. It's a pity that turning off
the web shield alone won't solve the problem.

 

[Patty]

Thanks for confirming the problem. I wasted all kinds of time yesterday
doing scans. See my later post from the Avast board regarding the Zone
Alarm problems, btw. They posted it this morning rather than last night
which would have saved me a number of problems. They're mail patch that
was just released solved my newsreader problems, although I'm getting all
kinds of time outs after just a minute of inactivity.

The problem with the turning off cookie protection is that you're leaving
your system open to loads of spy cookies. It's a pity that turning off
the web shield alone won't solve the problem.

Me too and I wasted much time and energy uninstalling and re-installing
software as well. At first I thought it was related to the Windows XP
security upgrade that installed yesterday so I uninstalled it also (and
ended up re-installing it when I found out what the real problem was). I
finally went to Avast's website and when I saw,"New Features -- WebShield"
I knew I had the answer. I didn't know it was related to ZoneAlarm,
though, until I visited the Avast forum. Turning off WebShield does solve
my problems with it though.

Patty

 

[Moe Hair]

Turning off WebShield does solve
my problems with it though.

will pausing the shield also solve the problem? I like to leave some of
the shields in the pause state in the event I need some quick protection.

 

[Martin]

I already went through all this yesterday. Try setting the cookie and
pop-up ad blocking in ZoneAlarm Pro to None in the Privacy setting and see
if that solves your problems.

Patty

So, out of curiosity, exactly what type of issues does ZA Pro have with
Avast 4.6 if Privacy is on in ZA??? I'm just curious as to what to expect
here as so far I haven't seen any problems, but certainly I'd like to avoid
any if I can!!!

 

[Martin]

Never mind Patty - my news server was a bit slow showing me all the messages
in this thread - found the info you posted now! ;-)