The General screen allows you to customize various settings of Avast Antivirus behavior. After making any changes, click OK to save your settings.
![]() Manage these settings from: ☰Menu ▸ Settings ▸ General
The Avast user interface is displayed in the language recognized during installation according to your system's regional settings, or the language manually selected during installation. To change the language of the Avast user interface once the installation is complete, follow these steps:
Of course, if you’re a gamer running Avast, this might all sound strikingly similar to Game Mode, and indeed it is. Do Not Disturb Mode replaces Game Mode, expanding its functionality to encompass all sorts of applications while still providing the same benefits, including the prioritization of system resources to keep your gameplay smooth.
Tick Enable Avast sounds to select event(s) during which you want to be alerted with a sound or voice message.
Tick Use voiceover sounds (when available) to play a voice message notification for events, for example when a threat is detected or virus definitions are updated.
Note: All sound settings are enabled by default.
You can manage the behavior of Avast popups using the options below.
All popups in the above list are set to 20 seconds by default. If you do not want to see popup messages from the above list, you can set the duration time to 0 for each popup type or enable Silent Mode in the main settings section.
You can create a password to restrict access to the Avast user interface or specific program settings.
Note: This password is not related to the Avast Account password or Master password for the Avast Passwords feature.
Follow these steps to set a password:
Note: If you lose or forget your password, you can regain access to the Avast user interface or settings by reinstalling Avast Antivirus.
In the Maintenance panel, you can optimize space on your hard disk by limiting the size of the logs and removing those which are no longer needed. Additionally, you can limit the amount of space used by Virus Chest.
In the Exclusions panel, you can exclude certain files, folders, or URLs from scanning. While it is generally not recommended, you may want to exclude certain files or websites from scanning, for example if you want to speed up your scans or to avoid false positive detections.
To add another item to the list, select the appropriate tab and click Add. To remove an item, click the relevant row in the appropriate tab then click Delete.
Exclusions created in the File paths and URLs sections apply globally to all antivirus scans and shields. To exclude files only from a specific antivirus scan or shield, use the Exclusions section in the settings of that particular antivirus scan or shield.
Note: Set exclusions only if you know that the files and websites you want to exclude are not infected.
Smart Scan combines scanning methods from several Avast components to check your PC for malware and other security issues. All available scanning methods are enabled by default. If you want to disable a scan, click the ON slider next to the relevant scan so that it changes to OFF.
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The Explorer Scan enables you to scan individual files or folders by right-clicking the icon of the file or folder you want to scan in Windows and selecting Scan from the context menu. Click Settings to adjust scan parameters.
By default, a popup alert appears on the screen of your PC when a virus is detected. If you are a network administrator, you can configure Avast to send notifications by email, to a printer, or to another PC in the network.
To manage alert notifications, follow these steps:
To add another item to the list, click Add. To remove an item, click the relevant row, then click Delete.
Note: All of the above settings depend on your network configuration. If you are unsure about these settings, contact your network administrator.
In the Privacy panel, you can specify if you want to participate in the following activities:
For more information, read Avast Privacy Policy.
This section allows you to back up and restore your customized Avast settings of components, such as Core Shields and Firewall. This is useful if you need to reinstall Avast, or to copy your settings to another PC where Avast Antivirus is installed.
Click Back up settings to create a backup of your customized Avast settings:
Click Restore settings to restore previously saved settings:
I'll go in more detail here.Hardened Mode is designed to make protection tougher without interfering with the computer usage much.avast! By default checks suspicious files with DeepScreen within virtual environment to see how they behave. But if you use Hardened Mode, it starts to behave a bit differently.Hardened Mode: ModerateUnder normal conditions, if avast! Decides that some file is too suspicious by various characteristics, it then throws it into the DeepScren for further scanning. But if Moderate Hardened Mode is enabled, avast! Automatically blocks files that are detected as suspicious by preliminary analysis.In most cases DeepScreen checks the file and if it doesn't find obvious malicious problems with it, those files are started automatically after analysis.
But Hardened Mode (Moderate) blocks it right there.Hardened Mode: AggressiveThis mode behaves a bit differently. It actually relies on analysis on a very small scale and mostly relies on a huge whitelist database located in avast! If file is located within the cloud and flagged as safe, it will allow to run it. If it's not found or marked as bad, it will block it. So, at least based on my experience, Aggressive Mode is actually much more secure and also a lot less intrusive. Only time that it will cause problems is with some very rare old software or very very new software that isn't used by thousands of users.
Usually some very specialized programs used by only few users.Moderate mode often feels a bit too paranoid (despite its name) because it often blocks safe programs just because they exhibit local suspicious file characteristics that are basically ignored by the Aggressive mode.Only thing that confuses me is why Moderate mode doesn't rely on the same whitelist to avoid these suspicious blockings. In my case, i prefer to use Aggresssive mode and i have done so on many systems and it worked like charm. No problems, no excessive blocking but with superior protection. I'll go in more detail here.Hardened Mode is designed to make protection tougher without interfering with the computer usage much.avast! By default checks suspicious files with DeepScreen within virtual environment to see how they behave.
But if you use Hardened Mode, it starts to behave a bit differently.Hardened Mode: ModerateUnder normal conditions, if avast! Decides that some file is too suspicious by various characteristics, it then throws it into the DeepScren for further scanning. But if Moderate Hardened Mode is enabled, avast! Automatically blocks files that are detected as suspicious by preliminary analysis.In most cases DeepScreen checks the file and if it doesn't find obvious malicious problems with it, those files are started automatically after analysis. But Hardened Mode (Moderate) blocks it right there.Hardened Mode: AggressiveThis mode behaves a bit differently.
It actually relies on analysis on a very small scale and mostly relies on a huge whitelist database located in avast! If file is located within the cloud and flagged as safe, it will allow to run it. If it's not found or marked as bad, it will block it. So, at least based on my experience, Aggressive Mode is actually much more secure and also a lot less intrusive.
Only time that it will cause problems is with some very rare old software or very very new software that isn't used by thousands of users. Usually some very specialized programs used by only few users.Moderate mode often feels a bit too paranoid (despite its name) because it often blocks safe programs just because they exhibit local suspicious file characteristics that are basically ignored by the Aggressive mode.Only thing that confuses me is why Moderate mode doesn't rely on the same whitelist to avoid these suspicious blockings. In my case, i prefer to use Aggresssive mode and i have done so on many systems and it worked like charm.
No problems, no excessive blocking but with superior protection. Friday, I turned on Hardened Mode to Agressive on my WinXP desktop. Saturday, WinPatrol v29.1.2013.1 was released.
As I attempted overinstalling to update, Hardened Mode prevented the install. I disabled Hardened Mode and completed the install, and allowed WinPatrol to restart. I then restarted Windows.I then turned Hardened Mode back on with WinPatrol running and logged out. When I returned to the machine several hours later, WinPatrol was no longer running.
When I tried restarting WinPatrol, Hardened Mode would not allow it. I tried rebooting a couple of times, and then turned off Hardened Mode. After reading this thread today, I tried again after enabling Hardened Mode.
The only was for WinPatrol to run was to set an exclusion for it in Hardened Mode.Either I misunderstand how Hardened Mode should work, or Avast has not yet updated the Whitelist database for the newest version of WinPatrol. Hardened Mod should give a popup to let you know the program intercepted and crucially there is an Add an exclusion link at the bottom.Unfortunately the popup doesn't stay up long (for me), so why it doesn't follow the timings for alert popups I don't know.
You have to be quick to notice it, read the file involved and if it should be allowed (excluded) to do al this in a couple of seconds. I normally have to run the program again Hardened Mode normally intercepts and I'm waiting to click add an exclusion.
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March 2023
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