Lock on Icon in beta and full version.

The lock on the tray icon in WSA-E worked fine with the beta and the full version on Vista.

However, this week after I reformatted and upgraded this laptop to Windows 7, installed the full version with my keycode I never saw the lock again. No other security software was installed.

So I uninstalled the gold version, installed the trial again with a trial keycode and voila the lock appeared when it should on https sites. Thinking it was now fixed I activated my full keycode and the lock now disappeared

Have now reverted back to the beta version which works as it should.

Observations; the beta version appears to be more stable than the release version of WSA-E on this machine.

Anyone else seen this behaviour when switching from the beta to the release version?

 

Have now found the culprit; as I was running WSA in a layered defense I has disabled Core System Shield to "lighten the load". Enabled again and the lock icon appears again.

So the Core Shield is essential to the Identity Shield?

 

I may be mistaken, but the Core System Shield is literally the core core core of this product. Even layered with something else, it should always be on. Without that shield, it's just a second-opinion MD5 checker that has less data available to it than definitions are created from.

It's like getting a ninja guard that will never get in the way of the clunky guys walking around with nightsticks and doughnuts, but then tying his hands behind his back and his ankles together and saying "Just look at people and tell me if they look like bad people". You lose all the benefit of having a ninja guard!

 

The beta and final release versions are identical at the moment (no conditional code running) so I couldn't see where the difference would lie. You'll likely want to leave the Core System Shield enabled - it does provide a noticeable additional layer of security but it shouldn't affect the Web Threat Shield or Identity Shield. You shouldn't experience any slowdown even when layered but if you do, please let me know. Leaving everything enabled should give you the best chance to have it fully compatible with the rest of the features.

 

Hey, I have that "no-padlock" thing on my XP SP3 system(with Avast IS Build 1289). I noticed that yesterday. That was the thing I was pointing out when the beta started. That the icon was way too small to notice. Noticed that just yesterday. Until now it's not visible. What may be the reason...?

 

Pretty reproducible here; if I turn off the Core System Shield the lock no longer appears; when I enable the Core again, the lock reappears.

Will run WSA-E with all shields enabled in future.

 

Aha, I see what you're referring to now. The issue is actually just aesthetic - the protection is still active but the tray icon should be reflecting the fact that the shields are disabled with a grayed out icon and exclamation point. This appears to only happen for when the Realtime Shield is disabled rather than the other shields.

So, you're still receiving full protection, it's just the disabled shield which is taking precedence over the notification of an actively protected browser instance.

This will be fixed in the next build, although note that you'll still not see the padlock - instead, you'll see a yellow warning icon because the shield is disabled.

Thanks!