Avast 7 Free Real-Time Shields

Which Real-Time Shields do you not use in Avast 7 Free?

 

Mail Shield since I use webmail and I believe it only scans downloaded mail like to Outlook or whatnot.

P2P Shield since I don't use P2P programs.

IM Shield since I don't use IM programs.

 

Same as Brandon.

 

Same as Brandon.

 

Actually, even if you don't use POP3/SMTP/IMAP based e-mail clients it's smart to leave the Mail Shield installed and tweak it a bit...

Let me explain why...

We know e-mail worms aren't all that common these days but still, avast! has a component which proactively prevents mail worms from spreading in case there will be some new ones.

Go to Mail Shield -> Expert Settings -> Mail Heuristics

Set it like this:


This will make it very trigger happy on any SMTP traffic going from your computer, possibly preventing mail worm from spreading. Most mail worms arrived with its own SMTP engine so you don't really have to use any e-mail client for them to spread around...

 

RejZoR is right , Even if you don't have an email client like outlook\thunderbird installed it is still beneficial to use the email filter as it's still possible for malware to use the protocol.

 

If you know your machine shouldn't be connecting to well known email ports, perhaps the best thing to do is keep those ports blocked via firewall.