Virus and Virus Removal
- 4/20/2008 10:18:00 PM - 11 comments
Configure Avira Antivirus Personal Edition Classic
This is a short tip how to make Avira Antivirus work better - and by the word better I mean meaner to viruses and trojans. It worked for me, just try it out, it might also work for you.
Configuration Guide
- You must have Avira Antivirus Personal Edition Classic, you can download the software for free from www.avira.com. Install the software and do the update. Make sure you have a full install. By the way, this software is free and it works good. But it lacks the network scanner capability - that is, it can not scan network folders for trojans and viruses, so careful when you browse network folders.
- Once you are done with the installation process, you'll have an icon near your clock that looks like an umbrella, double click that icon to view the settings.
- Click Configuration and you'll see this.
- Check the Export mode box and select Scan. Choose these options. Files -> All Files; Additional Settings should be checked - all of it.; Scan process would be low and the Allow process stopping should be checked.
- Setting for the Actions Concerning Files should be set Automatic and Copy file to quarantine before action should be checked. Choose repair as the Primary Action and delete as the Secondary Action. What the scanner will do first is backup the file in quarantine folder, try to disinfect it then deletes the file it can't be disinfected or repaired.
- This time, click Archives. Check the following options: Scan archives, All archive types, Smart Extensions, Limit recursion depths. This way, even if you are downloading something say from p2p network or torrent that contains a trojan or a virus, then the scanner will see though it even if it has been zipped or rared.
- Now, let's set the Heuristics options. Macrovirus heuristics should be checked. Win32 file heuristics should be set to High. Although this might take some system resources from your pc, but this will help you a lot when you try to make your pc "virus free" - but not "totally virus free", you might still get infected if you are not careful with what you open or click on the web.
- Let's configure the Guard. What we have configured so far is the Scanner - the manual scanner that is. This time, let's configure the Guard, this is the thing that scans almost everything in the background. Now let's make the Guard meaner to viruses. Select Scan and you will have this window.
- For the Scan mode, select Scan when reading and writing. For the Files option choose All files and for the Archives check Scan all archives and select everything below it. Now select Heuristics, you should have this window.
- Same configuration with the Scanner, check Macrovirus heuristics, and use High for the heuristics and select Ok.
This works well if you have your virus definition file updated regularly and that you do a full system scan in the background regularly, I'd say twice a month is ok.
yeah! AVIRA ANTI-VIRUS is great!
when I installed it in my pc, thousands of viruses & worms have been detected that were never detected with my previous anti-virus...
have it for your own before it's too late.....heheh........
First lets start with the comments of the chief guru moderator at Avira,a man of few words.(and less tact)
Friday, December 5th 2008, 10:12am
Hi,
I think default options are best suited for most users. That is a tutorial about how to activate all options for AntiVir (scan all files, High heuristics, etc.).
Nicolae Moldoveanu
Avira GmbH
Now of course all of us feel we know a little more about a piece of software than the guys who produced it,so we are going to fiddle with defaults.
You stopped with the guard settings,and left out the next menu,the "general" tab.
Under "extended threats" you can enable "all".
"security" is next,and its best to leave things alone there,unless you want to be notified if your program has not update in one or two days.(three is default).
Since Avira does not update on the weekends,there is not much point in setting less than three days.
Last is "update",and it is important to check "do not use proxy server",if you do not use a proxy.
this is a cause for a lot of update failure.
Lastly,I thank your idea to set "action concerning files" to automatic,with "quarantine" and "delete" as first and second
choice,is a recipe for disaster.
ALL anti-virus programs have false positives,and Avira has more than most.
90% of the time it is some unimoortant file in Mozilla profiles,or system volume info.
But what if it is a Windows system file that is the target of a false positive?
If it is quartined,that is bad enough,you may never be able to restore it.
More than likly the quaranatine option will fail,due to the size of the file,and it will be deleted.
In that case,get out you Windows operating system disc,and prepare to spend a few hours.
Leave "action concerning files" on "interactive"
Thanks.
If you keep action on detection set to automatic,
it is just a matter of time before a false positive either quranantines or deletes a Windows system file,
Leave it set on "interactive",or keep your windows instal disc handy.
Wow! This post really got a lot of comments. Anyhow, let me clarify a few things first.
1. These settings have worked for me for more than 2 years now. I did not have any problems with false positive detection for my windows system files since I used these settings.
2. These settings are good for me because I usually have a lot of different USB drives with a few hundred viruses in it that I need to be automatically removed, or else I'd be d*****d with selecting an action for each virus found.
3. I think that for owners of windows vista, as long as UAC is on, then deletion of windows system files might be not that possible.
4. About the updates, I have it when avira attemps to download update files even without web connection, so i decided to hide the darn thing that pops up when it tries to update the virus definition.
5. I have had experiences when a zipped file contained a Bagle virus that a friend of mine accidentally clicked or downloaded and was forced to reformat my pc, so I configured avira to super sensitive even if I know that I might get false positive virus detections. For me it's better to be safe than sorry.
You might not agree with me but I am quite sure of my settings, and I won't change these settings unless it has screwed something in my pc.
For those who gave comments, have you tried these settings before? Share your personal experience so that we would know what happened.
And lastly, moving "infected" files to quarantine folder will take a lot of space in your hard drive. So I suggest to delete these quarantined files once in a while.
Real time guard stayes in "Service" mode. Cannot change it.
Real time guard stays in "Service" mode. Cannot change it.
how do i get it to allow other computers on my network to access the net, when the pc with AntiVir Personal Edition Premium on also has the internet connection.
@Ty Buchanan
Real time guard? Have you tried reinstalling Avira after downloading an installer from their official host site?
@Anonymous: Can you be more specific on what you want? We might probably have the same settings. I use a single pc to act as file, print, and internet server. I added a router (in bridge mode) to my server pc and set its network connections to share the internet. Now, I access the net by connecting to the router (in bridge mode). What displays to my ISP is only one PC while the others have only shared internet connection from my server. What's good with this setting is that I have everything fully shared in my network so I don't have to plug and unplug usb devices. Works great for me.
Spammers everywhere!