Firefox 3 took the ostensibly admirable step of adding a feature that would scan every file you download for viruses. Unfortunately, it’s slow as hell. Downloading a single image would first freeze FF3 for 10 seconds, and then cause it to scan for another 15-30 seconds. I decided to turn the feature off.
Type about:config in the Firefox location bar and filter for the string browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone. The default value of that parameter is true which means that scans will be done whenever a file is downloaded. Setting it to false will disable the automatic virus scanning in Firefox 3.
You can right click on browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone and select Toggle to set the value to False. Now downloads are instant again.
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thats weird, I thought it always did this… I know my AVG free usually scans everything I download. I really do miss the old days of “click – downloaded”, but… I’m too paranoid to turn off any of my anti-viruses/firewalls. Yea, I know that as long as I do a weekly scan (and stop visiting naughty sites), my comp should be fine, but you can never be too certain! :-3
Oh, I see! So basically all this Firefox 3 scanning thing is just using my anti-virus (AVG) and making it do what its already doing?… Sooooo, AVG is basically scanning my files TWICE?!?! I may be paranoid, but this is too much! :O