How do you configure folder exclusions from real-time scanning in Avast?

Gurus,

Does anyone run the free version of Avast antivirus? How do you configure
folder exclusions from real-time scanning? I can't find that option within
the interface.

 

Thanks a lot!!! Will try this tomorrow.

 

Right-click on its tray icon.
Select "On-Access Protection Control" (on-access = real-time)
Select the Standard shield.
Click the Customize button.
Change focus to the Advanced tab.

There is no handy browser dialog option here to let you easily navigate
to where you want to find the folders or files to exclude. You'll have
the manually enter the path. You could use Windows Explorer to navigate
to the folder and the copy its Address Bar value when adding an
exclusion to Avast.

 

You do *not* want to exclude *any* files from a virus scan. The whole
point of a virus scan is to see if you *have* one. If you start excluding
files, you won't know for certain.

 

I agree, for the most part. I won't be excluding \Program Files, \Windows
\Documents and Settings or any built-in directory that viruses commonly
target. I have installed VMWare on the machine and only want to exclude the
\VMWare directory and the directory that contains the virtual machine files
from real-time scanning. No viruses that I am aware of targets those.

 

There's over 5,000 trojans viri and variants last time I checked. You must
have quite the memory. Just let the scanner check *all* files. Checking
it's own directory won't add more than a minute to the scan (which will
take *hours*). As for the likelyhood of a trojan attacking AV software, I
can't think of anywhere *more* likely aside from possibly base OS and mail
subsystems. Viri will infect *any* file exectuted. That's how they spread.

 

Apparently you've never heard of false positives by anti-virus software,
and sometimes the result is that one security program disables and
possibly corrupts another security program due to false positives. You
*do* want to exclude your security programs from each other if they
conflict with each other (and, no, uninstalling one of them may not be a
viable option since there is no doable or desirable replacement). Also,
some anti-virus vendors continue triggering on certain programs as
"Probably Unwanted Programs" because they're hackware or system tools
despite that the *user* installed them for their own use.

 

Now chucktard's gonna say that if your AV finds false positives, it's
crap. Get a new one.

 

chucktard filled Usenet with:

When was that? 1980? It is probably closer to a quarter million now.

It might take hours on your computer. Far less on any I service.

BTW, the word is not "viri." It is "viruses."

Please research
1. how to use commas
2. the usage of the word "its"
3. the likelyhood of using a spellchecker

 

Oopsie! Spelling errors in a spelling lame, mate.

When I do that, I always double-check (sometimes triple-check) my post
before hitting 'send'.

 

You are referring to "likelyhood" I assume? See Chuckie's post. That

Mee two.

 

In that case, Beau, please accept my most abject and humble apologies.

 

Accepted. Not to worry. ;-)

 

Then you're doing it wrong - at least one missteak is required in any spelling
lame.

 

I've used Symantec, McAfee, NOD32, Avira, Avast, AVG, and probably
others that I don't recall right now. I have yet to find one that is
guaranteed to NEVER have a false positive.