Avast

spurdog1

Sorry I haven't a clue which category, so here goes. 

I scan for viruses, malware, etc weekly. I have had Avast free for years, but of lately Avast full scan is taking four hours. Is this a long time in techie world. To me it seems a lot, but we are told to do a full scan weekly.

Any suggestions please?

dan958

How long is a piece of string?
Depends on how many files Avast is scanning each week. It could be that your PC is building up lots and lots of temporarily files that havent been cleared down, so that could be one reason why the scan is taking longer than normal.

[Deleted User]

Suggestions / thoughts:

1. Does it matter how long it takes? It can run in the background while you are doing other things so shouldn't even really affect you. 

2. My AV is set to automatically do quick scans daily that take 30 seconds to check 50,000 files -  unless something comes up and then I'll do a deep scan. Normally the quick scan checks the most vulnerable files and folders and should be sufficient unless you are a high risk user.

3. Real time monitoring is your first line of defence anyway and should be configured to monitor all disk activity and in most cases captures things before they end up stored on the disk for the scan to pick up.

4. Level of risk - does your weekly scan ever find anything? If not, then you might be a low risk user that can cut back on the full scans a bit. If you regularly do find things then the 4 hours is worth it.

Laz123

I do a full scan using the bootup scan option before retiring so it's ready in the morning.

spurdog1

Good, so what we are saying is "4 hours is normal", just leave it to get on with it, when you are not using it.

JJ_Egan

A full scan 4 hours depends upon what it scans   3  x 1TB drives  or to long if it is scanning a bare windows install .

Why is it set to do a full scan most AV have  full as an option .

dan958

I just started a full scan using Defender, and Windows estimate times are never really accurate, but it says it would take 11 hours to scan 5TB  (I assume Defender didn't include my network drives in the full scan, otherwise it could be trying to scan 14TB)

pbartlett

Do you need to scan everything eg .mp4, avi, jpg etc? You are unlikely to have 5TB of executables!

dan958

pbartlett said:

Do you need to scan everything eg .mp4, avi, jpg etc? You are unlikely to have 5TB of executables!

I was just giving OP anecdotal information of how long my full scans take. I never even bother with full scans, just let it do the scheduled quick scans.

Robisere

If you are running Windows 10, all the AV you need is Defender and Malwarebytes. They work well together with no conflicts.

I ran Kaspersky for years on Windows7 and was very glad to lose that additional expense.