TSGL: AVG Free AV vs. Avast AV ???

[Lee Bunyard]

I discovered that the reason for the noticeably slower pc operation in 
bringing up web pages is due to the Web Shield module contained in the 
Avast Free AV product.  It apparently scans each and every graphic 
segment that is loaded onto a webpage.  I de-activated that module and 
the webpages now come up VERY fast.  I'm not certain whether the AVG 
Free AV product scans webpages in a similar manner but I suspect it does 
not, since the webpages come up equally fast on my laptop that is 
running AVG Free AV.  I checked the AVG site but couldn't really find 
anything to indicate exactly what the standard configuration scans. 
QUESTION:  I've always thought that most viruses, trojans, etc. came in 
via attachments to email.  How important is it to have an AV product 
running that scans incoming webpages as they load in your browser??  The 
Avast website seems to indicate that scanning incoming http traffic is 
quite important and that the Avast scanning module has an almost 
negligible impact on browsing speed but that certainly hasn't been my 
experience. 
Lee in the Mountains of Northern California

Computerfee wrote:
> Hi there Lee,
>
> can't help you with the plug-in for AVG but here are just some thoughts
> about not needing e-mail virus scans at all - maybe this article is 
> interesting for you as well -
> http://www.thundercloud.net/infoave/answers/2007/no-email-scan-with-av.htm
> I don't rely much on the thundercloud answers, but think some of their
> articles are quite interesting as they show a different point of view and
> obviously they are objective as they don't want to sell anything but give
> away their stationery for free (they also have a really informative article
> about IncrediMail by the way which I am passing around quite often when
> people start strange problems with their computers -
> http://thundercloud.net/infoave/answers/incredimail.htm)
>
> have a nice day
> Heidi from Berlin, Germany
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Lee Bunyard" <leebunyard at comcast.net>
> To: "Tech Support Guy Mailing List" <list at tsgserver.com>
> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 12:06 AM
> Subject: TSGL: AVG Free AV vs. Avast AV ???
>
>
>   
>> I've been using the AVG Free anti-virus program for a number of years
>> now on a number of different pc's and have been very happy with it.
>> Have never had a virus infection on any of the pc's.  Lately I've been
>> running the AVG Free AV product on a desktop and laptop.   I use the
>> Mozilla Thunderbird email client and on both my desktop and laptop, the
>> AVG 7.5 Free program provides a "Personal Email Scanner" module that
>> scans the incoming and outgoing Thunderbird email.  It also scans email
>> for the IncrediMail email client which my wife uses.  When scanning, AVP
>> pops up a little box pops indicating that it is scanning email.  My
>> desktop went south several weeks ago and I purchased a new HP desktop
>> that runs Vista Premium Home edition OS.  Once I managed to get rid of
>> the annoying Norton AV product popups that the new MS computers come
>> preloaded with, I decided to download and use AVG Free AV on the new
>> desktop.  After going thru the frustration of trying to find the free
>> version of AVG on the www.grisoft.com website (they do everything they
>> can to direct you into one of their paid products), I finally found the
>> download site for the AVG Free version and downloaded the v7.5 product.
>> It installed OK and works fine EXCEPT that, while the email scanner
>> shows that it is functioning, it is definitely NOT scanning the
>> Thunderbird email.  When I check the AVG settings and properties for the
>> email scanner, it shows that the plugin it is using is for MS Outlook
>> Extension.  In other words, there is no plugin showing for Personal
>> Email Scanner, which apparently is needed to scan email other than MS
>> Outlook.  The HELP files for AVG indicate that I need to checkmark the
>> Personal Email Scanner in order to scan email other than Outlook but
>> there is no Personal Email Scanner there.  I've downloaded and installed
>> the AVG Free v7.5 product three times now trying to figure out what's
>> wrong but I get the same thing each time.  I just went and checked the
>> AVG Free product on my laptop and it is running the same v7.5 of AVG and
>> it does show that the Personal Email Scanner is in place and working.
>> The laptop is running XP Home OS.
>> Anyone running AVG Free experience anything similar to this problem, or
>> have any thoughts on why I can't get the Personal Email Scanner plugin
>> to setup during installation???
>>
>> Second issue.  Last nite, in frustration with the AVG Free installation,
>> I went out and downloaded the Avast Free AV product.  It setup and
>> installed OK and is running and apparently working OK, including
>> scanning incoming and outgoing Thunderbird email but it appears to have
>> DRAMATICALLY slowed down my new desktop pc.  Particularly on bringing up
>> graphics in webpages using the Firefox browser (my preferred browser).
>> Is this slowdown normal when running the Avast AV product??  If so, I
>> probably won't continue to use it.  There are 7 scanning modules with
>> Avast AV--Internet Mail, Network Shield, P2P Shield, Standard Shield,
>> Web Shield, Instant Messaging and Outlook/Exchange.  I turned off the
>> modules for Instant Messaging and Outlook/Exchange since we don't need
>> those functions but the pc performance with Avast is still much slower
>> than I ever experienced with AVG Free.  I'm not sure whether I can
>> safely turn off any of the other modules since I'm not really sure what
>> their function is.  Any thoughts from anyone who is using the Avast Free
>> AV product??
>>
>> Thanks for any thoughts on these problems.
>> Lee in the Mountains of Northern California
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