What Exactly Does Autoscan Do?

Hi;

I am a bit confused about the Auto-Scan feature. What exactly is scanned during an automatic scan? My understanding (according to the manual) is that Bit Defender continuously scans files with Auto-Scan enabled, but what gets scanned? Do all files on my computer get continuously scanned (if so it seems like somewhat of a waste), or does it simply continuously scan items while I am browsing the internet, or does it scan any “new” items that are found since the last complete system scan, or…?

Any help would be appreciated.

Tonia

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coolcool1227

I think its sort of Background Scanning, more information is here.

columbo

Maybe this will help a bit. I believe after its "complete scan", it scans only modified, changed and accessed files? So I'm not sure about the "recurring scans of the entire system"

Hi

The Auto Scan is a new feature and was introduced for the first time in Bitdefender 2012.

I've answered to your questions in general and I've took in the equation all versions of our product(the antivirus engine).

Auto Scan is a light on-demand scan that silently scans all your data for malware and takes the appropriate actions for any infections found. Auto Scan finds and uses time-slices when system resource usage falls below a certain threshold to perform recurring scans of the entire system.

Benefits of using Auto Scan:

-It has close to zero impact on the system.

-By pre-scanning the entire hard-disk, future on-demand tasks will be completed extremely fast.

-On-access scanning will also take significantly less time.

Basically is a continuous scan that helps to populate the Smart Cache. It doesn't scan boot sectors, registry and all the other options. The Real Time protection takes care of these.

It's recommended to run a full system once a month.

Thank you.

rootkit

Hello

Auto Scan (the short definition) is a module that scans your PC automatically so you don't have to scan it weekly/monthly.

When some resources are available, and I'm not talking here only when the PC is in Idle, Bitdefender will scan all your files.

Thank you!

Tonia777

Hi;

Thank you for your answers. The first two replies suggested some uncertainty about exactly what Autoscan scans, and Christian’s reply mentioned that “all” files are scanned. This does not really make sense to me. I did a full system scan a week ago (took around 7 hours), and came up clean. According to Christian’s reply, Autoscan will re-scan all my files once again. Why would all my files be re-scanned if they were found to be clean? It seems to me a better approach that BD should only scan those files that were modified or perhaps are being accessed (as suggested by Columbo).

Christian, can you please clarify that BD indeed scans ALL files in the autoscan mode, even if these were deemed clean? Also, if all files are automatically re-scanned, how can BD do this given that I rarely I have my computer turned on for the 7 hours it took to do a complete scan? Does BD do a partial scan and then pick up where it left off? I hope you can appreciate the confusion and lack of clarity surrounding this feature, as even the manual is unclear.

Thanks again to all who took the time to reply.

Regards,

Tonia

rootkit

Hi Tonia

Yes, our product does partials scans and then picks up where it left off. When a complete Auto Scan cycle is completed, the Full System Scan will run a lot faster because some of the files are added to a Smart Cache and they will only be rescanned if they were modified by the user or by a software.

A complete Auto Scan cycle can take up to 2 weeks, depending on the system resources and the data store on the HDD. As I mentioned earlier, the scan is running only when the PC is not heavily used by the user.

The Auto Scan was introduced in the product last year and all our users love it because they don't have to run weekly/monthly on demand scans.

Let me know if you have anything to add.

Have a great day!

columbo

Hi Tonia

Yes, our product does partials scans and then picks up where it left off. When a complete Auto Scan cycle is completed, the Full System Scan will run a lot faster because some of the files are added to a Smart Cache and they will only be rescanned if they were modified by the user or by a software.

A complete Auto Scan cycle can take up to 2 weeks, depending on the system resources and the data store on the HDD. As I mentioned earlier, the scan is running only when the PC is not heavily used by the user.

The Auto Scan was introduced in the product last year and all our users love it because they don't have to run weekly/monthly on demand scans.

Let me know if you have anything to add.

Have a great day!

Hi Christian

This question has been on my mind ever since this thread was started, in this sense. If I were to (anyone) disconnect from the internet, and leave the PC alone and running for 1 month, without accessing any files, it just sat there "On", would Bitdefender Auto Scan keep rescanning the HD, even after it had completed a scan, caching and all, would it, does it constantly scan, rescan in the background? Or, would it realize nothing has been access, changed, or modified, that it would "realize" it no longer needs to re-scan the whole HD, and not Auto Scan any more? Is it a constant, no matter what, Auto Scan?

Thanks for your help, friend

coolcool1227

Hi Columbo

Read this whole topic Skipped Items

rootkit

Hello

The discussion will continue over here:

http://forum.bitdefender.com/index.php?showtopic=36344

Thank you!