Prevx 3.0 Re-installation Benefits

After a lengthy conversation with Prevx 3.0 support and having submitted several deep and full scan logs, I've determined that they are on to something brilliant. I was amazed at the difference re-installing made on my scan time speed. If you are concerned about your scan time speed having increased over the months of using Prevx, this thread is for you!

Prevx will generally always scan faster than ANY of the competition, PERIOD. Most other scanners out there whether it be a traditional AV or security suite offer a deep/full scan (as in scanning every single file on the selected disks) and they offer a smart scan which checks target, key areas that are known to often be hotspots for malware to infect, as well as currently running processes.

Prevx is one of the few that offers three levels of scanning, a Quick Scan which is a very fast, flash scan of the memory, Deep Scan, which is by definition a very innovative, smart scan, but rather, stated to be a viable replacement for running a full scan, and then of course a full scan.

Out of all companies that should, Prevx needs not even offer a quick scan, because the deep scan should be quick enough to let you click it, and catch a train.

The deep scan, depending on your system type, how many files, and of course other variables, takes generally a pattern-based range of time. I'd say an average between multiple users I know would say it takes between 3 to 5 minutes. It can take up to 6 to 12 minutes, however, on a long-term installation of Prevx, which is what I'm going to explain next.

Prevx support looked at my scan logs that I submitted, and noticed that I had "quite a few" unknown files that should have been marked as good. This presumably happens quite often with customers that bother to send in logs. If you've never sent Prevx a log, I recommend doing so, just for the record. They claim that this could have been causing my scan speed to increase to 10 minutes. Now you might wonder why I'm frustrated over that, when that's still WAY faster than any deep scan of any other product. I guess I just wondered why it suddenly started increasing. I was spoiled by the 3 minute scans. It just seemed like it was over time starting to scan more than it really had to.

They kept urging me to re-install Prevx. They were very general and vague, of course, but they implied that re-installing would help apply the changes they made to the central database, and furthermore give Prevx a fresh start to re-analyze my system (learning scan) and re-determine what it really needed to scan.

I did finally re-install, and the learning scan took 3 minutes, and all subsequent deep scans with heuristics turned all the way up took about 40 seconds. On a cold fresh boot with nothing already into memory, the scan took 2.5 minutes. Enough said, I eventually want to make a video for YouTube that plays "Time We Have Wasted On The Way" by Crosby, Stills, & Nash and show all the other AVs scanning and wasting 20 minutes, to 30 minutes, to over an HOUR, and then show Prevx done in less than 1 minute. Time we have wasted scanning stuff that didn't change since the last scan.

Seriously people, reinstall your Prevx every half a year or so, it makes all the difference. Not to mention that it uninstalls and installs in about two seconds; you'll spend more time clicking the "I Accept the Agreement" box than it does to install.

~ Stephen
"STV0726"

PS

I have been reading these forums for quite some time now just never made an account. Good to finally be a poster.

PPS

ESET Smart Security 4
Prevx 3.0 w/ SafeOnline
PeerBlock
Sandboxie w/ Forced Programs Enabled (Now of course you don't have to buy the full version for that feature, but my point is, you should be browsing sandboxed more often than not.)

SpywareBlaster
MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware
SUPERAntiSpyware
HiJackThis (But honestly, ESET SysInspector is way better)
TuneUp Process Mgr (Makes the good old check for mal-processes much easier because you don't have to memorize the actual file names of WIN stuff, it just tells you in plain English what it is)

Mozilla Firefox with:
NoScript
WOT
AdBlock Plus

 

I'm not sure if a re-installation is absolutely necessary as disabling and re-enabling protection causes the learning scan to run as well. Whether this would suffice I'm not certain; perhaps someone else can clarify.

 

Thanks TonyW for your response...I was not aware that that caused a Learning Scan. I guess I've never fully disabled the protection other than install mode.

I would guess that that would work then. Perhaps a full re-install was precautionary/routine for tech support to suggest.

EDIT: I'm going to have my cousin whose scan time is ~7 minutes try this, as well as try your suggestion on our 3rd PC.

 

I've seen PrevxHelp mention scan result caching issues before, so I'd appreciate it if he would explain why this happens (a quick search didn't reveal anything). What are the chances of a file that's been initially determined 'U' then being updated to 'B' in the Prevx database, and the change not being reflected on a user's PC because of caching issues? How often does Prevx check for updated determinations on files? During scans only, or does it also do it every time an application is run?

 

this must have something to do with scanning and caching mechanism with the previous install thus re-installation fixes the problems?

 

Definitely some valid concerns. I have confidence that Prevx has a solid mechanism in place to make sure a bad file isn't falsely considered good, however, the problem that DOES seem to happen, is the scan takes longer because the file is Unknown and thus has to verify online.

My recommendation is, if your scan time has progressively increased and now takes on average longer than 5 minutes, I would recommend doing the following:

1. Suspend Protection > Remove Protection. Then re-enable it and let the learning scan complete. If it takes shorter, mission complete.

2. If not, try a full re-install.

 

Hello all
As STV0726 has pointed out, Prevx may scan faster when the PC is uninstalled/reinstalled after we whitelist the PC. The Prevx scan job is highly dynamic and will likely change on every scan just because of new files being loaded into memory/accessed. The primary reason why scans sometimes slow down is that when Prevx encounters a file that isn't known good and trusted within our database, it automatically adds every file within that folder to the scan. Because of how Vista/7 store system files in the WinSXS folder, this can often add thousands of largely unnecessary files to the scan job.

Additionally, by design, Prevx will always scan every file it has ever scanned, so scan jobs will increase in size over time. We do this to ensure that we're checking as thoroughly as possible, and while the scan speed may slow down after having been installed for a while, we are generally quite good with our whitelisting which should counteract it.

STV0726's recommendation was to send scan logs to us and I completely agree - if you feel that your scan is taking a bit too long, please send us over a scan log to report@prevxresearch.com. We polled our internal team (who tend to whitelist their PCs frequently and defragment often) and most everyone has scan times below 40 seconds so while 3-5 minutes is within the acceptable range, we want to be as fast as possible

Let me know if you have any questions!

(Also, one quick note is that the Suspend Protection/Remove Protection procedure will not reset the files stored locally - you'll need to uninstall/reinstall to clear it down completely)

 

Thank you Prevx for confirming that and helping clear this up. I've used Prevx for over a year now and for most of that year the scans have been in the 3 to 5 minute range, with occasional jumps to 6 minutes, and then only very recently have they increased to 7 to 12 minutes.

Now considering that's a Deep Scan with a claim stamped on it that it's as good as all the competitor's entire drive scans, that's still AMAZING. But it's very good to know that a simple re-installation will clear the local files and re-evaluate the system to the database and give you a fresh start with scans so fast that you might as well do one every time you need to look away from the PC to sneeze.

 

Well I disabled protection, ran a scan, and it took 6m51secs(it has been getting
slower of late..up to 8 mins or more), then enabled it again, and it scanned 20% more files and took 3mins 34secs.

 

In my System, scanning times always increase a lot after doing a scan with Malwarebytes (specially when performing a full one). MB activates all .exe's and .dll's and Prevx starts authenticating them like a machinegun. After that, Prevx's scanning time always go up from 1 minute to 6-8 minutes.

A workaround is suspending Prevx's real time protection while scanning with Malwarebytes.

 

I forgot about this.

/me pokes PrevxHelp with a pointy stick

 

Sorry about that Missed the post as well.

Prevx will reverify U files on a graded scale based on the age/popularity of the file. For instance, if a U file is several weeks old and is still U, the database will tell the agent to reverify it every day. If a file is very young or not seen on many PCs, it may reverify it every time, or once every few minutes. None of the "expiration dates" for files exceed more than a day or two but for an instant update, uninstalling/reinstalling will definitely refresh it.

 

Thanks for the explanation! I know most people don't care about how the software they're using works, but I — and I dare say a few others at Wilders — like knowing the little details.

 

I can certainly confirm the benefits of a reinstallation, as I decided to try this earlier, since deep scan times were taking about 8 plus minutes. I found scan times improved...now 3 1/2 minutes, and also RAM usage at system idle dropped about 10% from 11800K to 10700K. So there's definitely a benefit to be had.

 

Now all we need is that upcoming update to import/export confg.

Or a function in Tools called "Refresh Prevx" which redoes a learning scan and clears local files.

 

We need both. Look, there's a big space on the settings page. Why not put a "manage settings" icon there? P L E A S E !!

 

yeah, yeah, yeah, you are right though.

Hats off to Joe and Mario today staying here personally to resolve and calm the fears of us to show that Prevx does what it says. In all apects. I am sure they would have prefered to have been at the gourmet cooking table today, creating the masterpiece that version 4 is going to be. But even good cooks, need a break from the kitchen now and then.

 

I have to agree with you for once trjam it doesn't give me any chance in posting!

TH

 

and that my friend, is icing on the cake. Lol

 

Thanks everyone. Distractions like these are always a bit annoying because of how badly we all want to be working on Prevx 4 24/7 but still important to take care of nonetheless.

Regarding the import/export config - that is already implemented in Prevx 4 but we're seeing how to have it fit within 3.0/SafeOnline as there are some difficulties with the self protection of configuration as it is encrypted on a per-PC basis. Because of this, we should be able to export the SafeOnline configuration and import it back onto the same PC, but for now, it won't be able to be imported from another PC. That also doesn't solve the problems with a reformat... so we're still looking into a better workaround as we want to do it properly

 

Why not take a leaf out of Valve's Steam Cloud and mirror user settings at Prevx's end of the line? Tie it to the user's license key (make it opt-in) so that Prevx downloads the settings the user was previously using when s/he enters the license key on a fresh installation.

 

We have had this bounced around internally quite a few times and it is indeed a great idea. I do hope that we'll be able to do something along these lines with Prevx 4, although it is currently in place in Prevx Enterprise (but not for consumer).

It definitely does go in-line with the rest of Prevx, and MyPrevx allows for simple central configuration. We've thought a bit about making all of the configuration online and then just offer a basic interface locally, which would make the product very streamlined (the bulk of the small size is actually just graphics).

Any thoughts?

 

I don't like it . I much prefer the controls to be in the application. Besides I don't want to save date for my websites (passwords etc) in the cloud

Its a good idea to save other settings in the cloud though - you could presumably make this transparent to the user.