I installed Avast today on one of my machines. I find the help file to be absolute crap. It's not organized and it mixes too much of the info for the paid version into it and confuses you when trying to determine what is included in the free version. I could have gone through the Avira help 10x over by now.

Anyways I seem to have figured most of it out but the email. According to the help file there is a Mail Protection Wizard in the Windows Start Menu under the Avast entry. I don't see it there or any where else in the Avast GUI. So where is it?

You may enjoy this read Anthony, although he does use windows 98 he runs through avast pretty well

http://indexme.blogspot.com/2008/05/avast-...8-problems.html

Thanks for that. He says he ran the Mail Configuration Wizard from the Windows Start Menu but he has the pro version. I do not have that option in the Windows Start Menu in the free version. I will have to wait for one of the Avast users here to see if they have it in the Start Menu.

He mentioned about not having the option to let a scan finish and list the detections and deal with them individually at the end of the scan. I didn't see any option to set this either in the settings so I am afraid that is the way it is and very stupid. AniVir is also like this but it's scans are short so it's not a problem to baby sit it but Avast"s scans are much longer. Who want s to sit there and watch a scan so they can respond to the detection if the scan is hours long?

My impressions of Avast after one day and a thorough reading of the help file is that I much prefer Avir AntiVir. Much more intuitive GUI. Avast is all over the place and a mess. The help file is poorly done. I can't see how anybody that has tried Avast and Avira could possibly prefer Avast. Having said that I prefer Avast to AVG 8. I prefer AVG 7.5 to all of them.

Yeah but Avast has Data.



Yeah I know, spoken with such authority. I never really noticed that. You're right. Avast & AntiVir don't let you check on what (if any) bad files it may have caught. Then again, I don't think it's had the chance to 'catch' anything yet. It's a clean machine. They're not like Adaware or Spybot that catches any of grandmas' cookies and holds a gun to its head.

Do you have an Email configuration Wizard in the Windows Start Menu entry for Avast?

I don't think that voice sounds like Data I read that in one of the threads but when I heard it it doesnt sound like him to me.

No, I don't have that Email Configuration Wizard in my Windows Start/ bar. (I also have the free version.) And no, it doesn't sound like Data. But I'm sure Brent Spiner doesn't normally sound like Data in either.

I don't know how to solve your problem (sorry), but I will say this, I had to reformat my computer because I somehow became infected by "virtumonde" which avast just let right in through a torrented photoshop install. AVG on the other hand gave me a warning about the install and even told be what it was infected with; I've been clean for a while subsequently.

Avast's free version seems like something they cobbled together to look altruistic - AVG's free version is on the same par with its 'pro', albeit missing a few valuable features. I'd recommend comodo firewall as well, but I had some gaming issues with it and online gaming protection programs (xtrap, gamegaurd, etc.); if that doesn't worry you then it's one of the best firewalls around.