How to Disable Automatic Virus Scanning in Firefox 3

I came across several posts since last week on how to turn off virus scanning in Firefox 3. It makes me wonder why I don't see such a feature after completing a download. The virus scanning however appeared for the first time today (was I being too observant or what?). It's a Word file (*.doc), so I presume the feature is only activated when we download certain types of files which might affect our computer systems.

The file I downloaded today was not that big (roughly 100kb), so the scan took place pretty quickly. I guess the time taken will be longer as the size of file downloaded is bigger. Even though it doesn't pose any problem yet, I better turn this off as I don't see any significant security enhancement being delivered. From I could gather from around the net, if a file is suspected to contain a virus, Firefox will effectively give warning message that reads "Blocked: Download may contain a virus or spyware" though we know for sure it is not.

Here is the steps need to be taken to turn this feature off.

1. Type in "about:config" in Firefox URL bar and press Enter. To confirm, click on "I’ll be careful, I promise! button".

2. Type scanwhendone in the Firefox cpanel Filter box ( look at top ). You should see something like "browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone" in the results window.

3. Double-click on this entry or right-click on it and select "Toggle". Now your setting value to "False".

4. That's it! Close firefox, restart your Firefox and you are good to go :)

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