What are /r/avast's favorite Products & Services?

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For a proper response you may have to wait until after the weekend for any Avast representatives to reply, particularly given the technical nature of your post, but in the meantime I noticed a few oddities. In the details of aswidsagenta.exe you posted, the copyright field has a typo (?) "20114" and the SHA1 seems to be OK but is missing a character (the 4 after 3030):

aswidsagenta.exe f78d553ae96c7fa30304be2f6f0edf164e44d8f9 (from my machine just now)

Also not sure if the javaw.exe details are just over-redacted or if there's an issue there too.

It's possible Avast is enabling extra protection for the javaw process above and beyond what Windows would default to. If you're interested in looking into the issue further, you might try disabling Avast and using Microsoft EMET to tinker with those - see if you can reproduce the crash.

I haven't done much Java and of course I don't have the details of what you are asking it to do, but from what you describe it sounds plausible, maybe have a look at this link where someone describes not being able to allocate more than 512MB Java heap while running Kaspersky. Perhaps there is a way to make Java allocate memory in a manner more agreeable with Avast? :)

From a security perspective I don't think you have an issue - a "behavioral false positive" if you will. From what you've given me, I read this situation as "Avast instructs the OS to watch certain processes for suspect / stupid stuff, the OS detects that and kills Java" so maybe try excluding the Java process in Avast settings.

Just to add to the other comments, this kind of thing is why having a decent ad blocker is not really optional anymore.

Try uBlock Origin if you want one that's pretty well regarded. Works with all the major browsers.

There's also unchecky but I haven't tried it myself.

Edit: just to clarify I don't think that's the issue here - it doesn't matter how many boxes you untick if you click on bad stuff and run as administrator.

That particular issue you linked to won't ever show up if you switch into silent mode. And it would be completely superfluous if you were using a VPN.

I'd recommend nordVPN, or Mullvad

The falsifying of scan data? Well the "smart scan" does scareware tactics, but you can ignore the "advanced issues" it finds. After you do that first "smart scan" it won't ever bother you again.

The paid version of avast has the webcam shield to prevent malware from turning your webcam on so it needs access to your webcam for that. But the free version of avast doesn't have the webcam shield.

I know NordVPN do a 3 day free trial but I can't comment on whether it's any good. Might be worth trying though - could be a nice quick way to determine whether the problem lies with the computer or the network.

I'd hold off speaking with the landlord until you have your facts straight, but if the wifi password wasn't changed after you moved in, I'd consider that wifi public and act accordingly.

I tried this free trial of NordVPN and it's actually pretty good provider, so I decided to keep it. I even heard it got a badge from for being the fastest VPN. This is pretty cool, hope they will continue to keep up a good service.

The situation seems to have improved more recently, but this kind of advice is relevant to more than just the Android app store - it wasn't that long ago having someone download Teamviewer (for example) via a Google search was a minefield of deceptive advertisements, and yet another reason why a decent ad-blocker is essential.

Yeah it does seem Avast has lost its edge on performance more recently - it always used to be in the top 3. I'm looking at these test results here.

Honestly though I haven't noticed any performance issues, and my PC is ~10 years old. Perhaps it's a Windows 10 thing, I'm still on 7.

Have you tried the automated repair? Or a full uninstall / reinstall? Noticed anything with Task Manager?

FYI Avast is usually rated among the best performing AV on the market. more info here

> Third party solutions that do nothing but drain your battery?

In this recent test from a well known and long respected source, Google's AV scored 68% whereas Avast scored 100%:

https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/android-test-2019-250-apps/

In the same test, 61 developers of various "mobile AV" products were found to be "risky".

> Almost nobody is out there ...

'SimBad' Android adware was downloaded nearly 150 million times - just a recent example picked at random from a plentiful supply.

Don't get me wrong, I don't really care about Android, I only have an old Android tablet I use once in a while with half a dozen apps on it. But given that a lot of shitty Android gear, not a firmware update between em, is in the hands of people's children these days (who along with most adults can't be trusted not to examine permissions prior to install) I suspect, and this is backed up by the numbers, Android malware is a much bigger problem than you give it credit for.

You can try removing components of Avast you don't use but honestly 100MB is nothing these days, and you have to understand Avast has been one of the best performing AVs for a long time - it keeps what it needs in memory to ensure your computer remains responsive.

It's worth having a look at this:

AV Comparatives - Performance Tests April 2018

TL;DR: Your computer will likely perform better with Avast than with Windows Defender.

There are a few other reasons why Avast is better (and to be fair, one or two reasons why Avast is worse) but the extra performance is usually a favourite.

Maybe a problem with the website's certificate, maybe the Avast browser addons, maybe try disabling shields and rebooting / restarting browser, who knows, you're unlikely to get any useful or relevant help until you provide some details.

> if anyone has any good alternatives to avast let me know

Yeah, mate, you're in the wrong part of town for that one really. Try /r/antivirus but be concious of the fact any self-proclaimed antivirus / security expert is just another rando on the internet you never heard of. Also https://www.av-test.org/ and https://www.av-comparatives.org/ may be worth a look - particularly the last one has been around for a long time and is pretty well regarded.

If there are no objections, I'm inclined to allow this post on this occasion. Please consider the guidance here:

https://www.reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion

For comprehensive testing of a variety of AV products, AV Comparatives is a good resource.

open the main UI> "Menu" > "Settings" > "Protection" > "Core Shields" > click the checkbox to enable hardened mode. By the way. the file shield should be set to "all files" instead of "files with recommended extensions"

This will make avast block anything it can't identify on the spot instead of trying and almost always failing to detect it through sandboxing it and the file shield will now scan everything that tries to load into memory.

That cybercapture/deepscreen needs to just go away and then hardened mode will be the only option.

Trying to sandbox an unknown file the way avast does it is dumb. Comodo does it right, but I don't like comodo anymore, it's not stable and they accidentally add PUPs to their whitelist way more often than what would be acceptable.

Under Potentially unwanted programs enable "scan for PUPs" and "Scan for Tools" select "resolve automatically" for both.

Get a VPN too.

any VPN you choose must cost money, promise no logs, and allow P2P. NordVPN is good, Mullvad VPN is also good. Even if you're not going to do P2P it's very important that the VPN you choose allows it when they say they don't keep logs.