Avast: confirmation before blocking and/or deleting a suspicious file

Question

Is there any way to configure Avast so that it asks for a confirmation before blocking and/or deleting a suspicious file?

Answer 1

Honestly, my first reaction to this question was the same as @Ramhound's. Then, I went to look in the settings for myself and found it actually is kind-of buried. Here's what to do...

1. Double-click the Avast tray icon, or right-click it and select "Open avast! user interface", or go to the Start Menu... How about I just assume you know how to open Avast?
2. On the left side of the main Avast screen select "Settings" (the gear icon, on the bottom, in case the titles are hidden).
3. On the left side of the Avast Settings screen, select "Active Protection".
4. Next to the on/off switch for each "Shield", there's a gear icon. Click one of those.
5. On the left side of the "Avast [Shield Type] Shield" screen, select "Actions".
6. In the Actions screen, there are three tabs: "Virus", "PUP" (Potentially Unwanted Programs), and "Suspicious" (AKA: heuristics findings). Each of these has options for a primary action, and two contingency actions. The option you want in all of these is "Ask".
7. Configure any other options you want to tweak while you're here, and click "OK" when you're done.
8. Repeat steps 4-7 for each Shield.

That's for the real-time protection modes. For changing the same setting on a manual scan:

1. On the left side of the main Avast interface, click "Scan" (magnifying glass, second from the top).
2. Choose the scan type you want to run. Then click the "Settings..." hyperlink, which will be below and to the right of the scan description.
3. From the Scan Settings screen, click "Actions" on the left side.
4. Un-check (or leave un-checked) "Automatically apply actions during scan (check this box to select an action)".
5. Configure any other options you want for the scan, and click "OK" when you're done.

Having said all of the above, I'm pretty sure I haven't tweaked any of these Avast settings on my installation yet, and they were all already set to prompt before taking action. Also be aware that the prompt you'll receive isn't a simple "Yes/No" - it will give you a list of options to choose from, every time.