Avast overal information
Avast is a company widely known for the antivirus with options of free and paid plans. With a total number of more than 435 million active users in a month, Avast has the largest market share among the anti-malware software. It has more than 1800 employees working in its 25 branches worldwide. The company had a revenue of more than $800 million in 2018. Avast has been in the field for 31 years and has become the first choice of many users due to a straightforward and powerful interface enriched with various beneficial features.
Avast antivirus is well known as one of the best antivirus protection software out there. Several tests, both sponsored and independent, have been carried out to determine the quality and effectiveness of protection that Avast antivirus offers. The results have unanimously gotten Avast awards as best antivirus of the year on many occasions. The level of trust people have in the antivirus is evident in the fact that they now have more than 400 million active users all over the world. Avast offers free antivirus protection to their users with the option of getting more premium utilities when they upgrade.
Avast sells its products as the freemium model with a Free Basic Plan where ads may be present. Also, there is a Premium Plan free of ads that include advanced features that are not available in the free version. Avast provides free antivirus with the basic features, Internet security with additional features for securing the online activity and Premier license for additional features like Webcam Shield, Data Shredding, and Automatic Software Updates. Also, there is an Ultimate Version with VPN, Passwords Premium, and Cleanup utility.
Behavior Shield
Avast Behavior Shield is one of the extra features of Avast antivirus. It adds an extra layer of security for your computer system by keeping tabs on all running processes whenever your order is in use. By doing this, it can discover any erratic behavior caused by spyware, malware, or computer viruses. It can successfully identify malicious files on your PC based on previously identified threats and block them before they can expose your PC to viruses and other vulnerabilities. It can even resolve the threats that are not defined in the database of the antivirus by analyzing the behavior of the suspicious file. Behaviour Shield acts as an effective additional layer for protecting the device in real-time against malicious files and suspicious attacks to the device.
The real-time protection it offers is always active by default, which is suitable for your computer; you can also adjust the settings to fit your preferences if you know your way around the advanced anti-malware configurations. However, it is highly recommended that you keep it enabled always.
After the detection of any potentially harmful program or files in the device, Avast Behavior Shield blocks the operation, and you will get the report to the dangerous behavior of the file or program. So, you will be protected from various attacks done to your machine in the real-time by the use of the Avast Behavior Shield.
Avast has been trusted by millions of users worldwide. It is an established company in the field of antivirus, and you can choose it without any doubt on your pc being affected by the security program. Avast Behavior Shield can make you a lot easier for all-rounder protection of the device in real-time.
If you would like to edit the Behavior Shield configuration to fit your preferences, you’ll need to use the tabs located on the left side of your computer screen. There you will see the following tabs where you can edit the settings to suit your needs:
Avast Behavior Shield Main Settings
On the main settings screen, you can choose what the computer does when a “threat is detected”. You can set the action to any of the following instructions:
1. Always Ask: Choosing this option will instruct Avast to notify you whenever a threat is identified, you can then decide what you want to do with the danger. You can choose to ignore the threat, move it to the Virus Chest, or delete the threat immediately.
2. Automatically move detected threats to Chest: This option automatically moves all identified threats to the Virus Chest.
3. Automatically move known threats to Chest: This option only removes threats that are listed in Avast’s virus definitions database and have been verified to be harmful. It is the option enabled by default.
All these three settings on what to do after the program detects malicious files are important, so always ask, automatically moved detected file to the chest or move only known ones to the chest. The third option is selected by default, but you can choose the first option as you will be prompted every time and can identify the detected file and prevent the entry of such files in the future.
Avast Behavior Shield falls on the category of the core shields of Avast antivirus. The core shields include file, web, mail, and Behavior Shield. These shields are enabled in the Avast antivirus by default, but you may notice the absence of these shields for which the guide can help you.
Is it your first time with Avast Behavior Shield?
At first, open the Avast antivirus and go to the menu and click on settings. Now, click on protection and select core shields. Look for “configure shield setting”. Click on the Behavior shield tab after finding the shield settings. Now, you need to choose what to do. If the enable Behavior Shield checkbox is checked, the Behavior Shield is already enabled, if not ticked, the Behavior Shield is turned off, and you can enable it by simply ticking the checkbox.
How to disable Avast Behavior Shield
If you need to disable the Behavior Shield, you need to follow the same steps described above and untick the checkbox Behavior Shield if ticked, and the Behavior Shield is off if the checkbox is already unticked.
So, you can enable and disable (install and uninstall) Avast Behavior Shield easily. Many users report the excessive RAM consumption after enabling the Behavior Shield, so you need to check the stats of the RAM consumption in your computer before and after enabling the Behavior Shield. Behavior Shield can protect the computer from various harmful threats easily and can act automatically if any suspicious file is found in the device.
Exclusions
You can specify which folders should be excluded from Behavior Shield’s scans in the Exclusions tab. To add a folder to the exclusions, you can type its location in the space provided, or you can ‘Browse’ through your file explorer and select the folder you want, then click ‘OK’. Use ‘Add’ to add more folders to the exclusion list. To remove a folder from exclusions list, select the folder you want and click ‘Delete’.
It should be noted that any folder you exclude from Behavior Shield’s scans can still show up in other Avast antivirus scans. To eliminate any folder or file from all scans in Avast, you should go through Settings – General – Exclusions and add the folders you want.
With Avast Behavior Shield, your PC is better protected and safer to use. Make sure it is always enabled to enjoy all the extra protection it provides.