It's been pissing me off for a while, with it's almost daily updates that require a reboot, I generally don't reboot my system if I don't need to and it's really annoying me.

I can understand updates and am happy to have them, but surely they don't need a reboot to take effect?

Anyone else notice this?

Any other alternative free virus software out?

Yes I have been having the same troubles at my end. Even to the point of automatic shut down when I leave it on while I'm at work. Very frustrating.

Are you using version 8?
If not give it a whirl.

Sorry version 7

might upgrade

8 is the way - ive yet to restart because of an update etc

Btw - You can get avg 8 pro for free for those who are interested , valid to December. More importantly legally :D

http://www.tipandtrick.net/2008/free-avg-80-anti-virus-license-number-with-anti-spyware-and-anti-rootkit-for-8-months/

I've been using AVG for almost 2 years and never had an issue. Very weird indeedy!

I had to restart when upgrading between versions, other then that it has never required a restart for a patch for me.

I upgraded to v8 to stop the daily nagging "New version is out" window that popped up. Once that was installed, I went into the Scheduling options and turned off automatic program updates but left automatic virus definition updates on.

I upgraded to v8 to stop the daily nagging "New version is out" window that popped up.

By the way, if anyone is having Valve games (TF2, CSS, etc) crash to desktop regularly, it's due to a conflict with AVG. Just need to do a small registry change:

1. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
2. Change PagedPoolSize to 402653184 in Decimal.
3. Reboot.
4. Watch lack of crashes.

Version 8 here and not a problem in the world!

heh, i just uninstalled avg7 this morning... the reboots n nagware are worse than any virii i've had :P who gets virii anymore anyways... all seems about the spyware these days.

I'm running v7.5 and haven't had to reboot for an update for months

yeah, running 7.5 here and 8.0 at home, never a reboot problem except when i upgraded at home.

Not sure whats going on with yours heardy, SURE it's avg? windows have release a few reboot patches recently.

Gaelic newb

I used to use AVG, got the s***s with it too, I've been using Avast! for a while now on 3 machines with no issues.

Kasperski...


props to Hermitech for the recommendation on that one.

AVG full version seems as good as it's job as the Windows Firewall is.

I almost fell off my chair when I noticed that my Gigabyte mobo cd comes with a trial version.

still, anti-virus programs being what they are... we'll be on to another one soon enough

I've been using ESET's NOD32 for the last few weeks. I think i'll buy it when it expires. I like it.

last edited by natslovR at 19:35:02 18/May/08

last edited by natslovR at 19:36:34 18/May/08

I'm quite sure Hitler used NOD.

giri - my AVG icon in systray greys out and says it needs a reboot in order for the updates to take effect, so confident it's AVG :p

Am aware of the MS updates recently.

Upgraded to 8 yesterday and it hasn't prompted for a reboot yet...

I have completely stopped using AVG, Working in IT I see way too many Computers come throught with Virus like Symptoms, Oh but I run AVG and its always up to date, after giving the PC a good scan with CA 2008 the results speak for themselves.

Just because AVG claims you have No Viruses, Doesn't mean much.

cause the free version is a VIRUS scanner

alot of people who get problems these days aren't dealing with virus's.

I had that problem with AVG 7.5 needing reboots, it all started in vista with SP1. Uninstalled and reinstalled and it went away. Running version 8 on my 4 PCs and no problems at all 3 Vista machines with SP1 and 1 XP SP3 machine.

Please read what I posted again, I was talking about Viruses, So therefore AVG Virus Protection is inadequate from my experiences.

I read what you said again, and you're talking about something that has "virus like symptoms" and yet AVG doesn't catch it - which I would conclude means "it's not a virus" - unless what you're trying to say is "AVG is rubbish at catching actual viruses".

Probably need to clarify if you're talking about viruses, spyware, malware, adware, etc. I've been free of all of them since I a) installed AVG and b) switched to Firefox

I thought v8 was a paid version? So I can upgrade to v8 and still have it free?

Stay away from v8. AVG was awesome up until 7.5 (which will run out at the end of May). Best free scanner now is avast.

I thought v8 was a paid version? So I can upgrade to v8 and still have it free?

heh i thought the same thing, when the upgrade nag window comes up it takes you to a page for the paid version, so i just closed it without looking too hard.. same thing happened with the last version.

Whats wrong with avg 8 haklin?

When I upgraded to v8 I noticed the green verification icons when I visited Google from within Firefox. Seemed it was trying to verify that the links were approved by some master AVG server or something. f*** that.

So I disabled the "Link Scanner" from within AVG, and now the AVG icon shows a red exclamation mark making it look like something is wrong with the scanner or some other critical problem. Click on it and AVG just says that my computer might not be fully protected. No s***, I manually turned that bulls*** feature off.

I think when the next version comes out I might switch to another scanner. v8 has gained bloat, takes about 2-4 seconds for the main window to pop up when I click the icon, as opposed to instantly in v7.5.

it just scans the links in google for any viruses etc.

Whats the point of that really, i mean if its doing its job it should intercept then when you download or run them?

it just scans the links in google for any viruses etc.

Ok so it wastes bandwidth and quota looking up sites, most of which I probably would never have actually clicked on nor visited. No thanks.

I just couldnt imagin it would scan all the listed sites for Viruses, as that would be inefficient and useless.

Either way (Global list vs Realtime scan), it's still a dumb feature.

I sometimes want to rock up to an Anti-virus developer and slap him over the head with a fish, as payback for all the bulls*** features that weren't needed or requested, that ended up slowing down my system or causing problems.

i used avg for maybe 2 years up to 7 / 7.5 updated all the time, one day i wondered how good it really is.. i installed avast and scanned my PC and it came up with a few viruses/trojans i think there was 6-7 which avg never picked up on and some of these files were between 2-4 years old. have not looked back

For those who hate the AVG link scanning thing, it's actually a FireFox plugin you can just disable (called AVG Safe Search). No need to disable it in the AVG console and that way you get no stupid red exclamation mark.

Are you sure?

im pretty sure thats what it said when it asked if i wanted to install that feature.

it scans the link

edit: looks like it scans the sites:

While browsing web, you may receive a warning from AVG Search-Shield. This component is scanning the websites you are searching for, and provide protection against threats within malicious or hacked websites.

last edited by ravn0s at 10:15:54 20/May/08

Shrug, its common enough a feature, McAffee does something similar I think from memory.

I saw it and went "oh? hah ok". People get fired up about odd things :)

So I disabled the "Link Scanner" from within AVG, and now the AVG icon shows a red exclamation mark making it look like something is wrong with the scanner or some other critical problem. Click on it and AVG just says that my computer might not be fully protected. No s***, I manually turned that bulls*** feature off.

Heh I hate behaviour like that. I recently upgraded to PGP v9.5 and it has this feature where it detects whenever I'm sending email and wants to secure all my links.

I don't want it to do that, so I turned the feature off - and now I have the EXACT same problem - a little red mark on the systray icon telling me its broken. Lame.

When I upgraded to v8 I noticed the green verification icons when I visited Google from within Firefox. Seemed it was trying to verify that the links were approved by some master AVG server or something. f*** that.

So I disabled the "Link Scanner" from within AVG, and now the AVG icon shows a red exclamation mark making it look like something is wrong with the scanner or some other critical problem. Click on it and AVG just says that my computer might not be fully protected. No s***, I manually turned that bulls*** feature off.

I think when the next version comes out I might switch to another scanner. v8 has gained bloat, takes about 2-4 seconds for the main window to pop up when I click the icon, as opposed to instantly in v7.5.

yeah that's annoying
I contacted their support department about it because we bought the enterprise version and they replied saying that's the way it's supposed to be. there's several annoying things about version 8 that have basically highlighted the fact that I was a fool buying it before trialling it :( mcaffee's enterprise version that we had prior to this was far less annoying

i think i might uninstall avg then reinstall it and unclick the linkscanner feature.

i am trialing this avast! home edition (free)... seems ok so far.

false

type something into google and look at your outbound tcp connections while the link scanner is doing it's thing. nab some of the ip's it's checking on port 80, and then resolve some of the domains in the google results - they'll match

So it protects you from downloading bad material by downloading said bad material and scanning? Genius!

it's what browsers might do with it when attempting to render that's the potential issue. quite a difference between that, and fetching the text to search it for patterns when your job is being a virus scanner and not a browser

Avast!

That's if you assume this new link scanner doesn't introduce potential security problems of its own. Stuff like correctly parsing URLs, downloading content properly, no silly things like buffer over-runs, etc.

One might argue that I'm already putting the security of my PC into the hands of AVG so what's one more feature? But the reality is that half of my 'security' is undertaking good practice like not touching obviously dodgy websites in the first place. Some are pretty easy to pick out on a google result listing and if it weren't for the damn Link Scanner, I wouldn't have had any contact with the sites whatsoever.

you're being a bit silly
stop it

How is that silly?

With so many programs and file formats I have seen, there have always been ways to do an exploit. Image exploits in a browser, PDF exploits that can own acrobat, Shoutcast string exploits, etc.

I understand that a virus scanner isn't actually trying to parse a file or anything with such a naive approach as a regular program (ie, assuming the input file is not malformed) and probably focusing primarily on pattern matching, but who knows where they could open up potential for exploits.

As I said, they could stuff up URL parsing, stuff up something in the http download engine (header parsing, etc), could be anything .. I don't need to be overly paranoid to be cautious about such a new feature that tries to contact potentially dodgy sites most of which I probably never would have visited. All I know is that I'm probably far better off not having my PC trying to contact all the sites, and let the A/V software deal with issues as they happen.

I don't so much disagree with the basic sentiment, but that's a far cry from:

So it protects you from downloading bad material by downloading said bad material and scanning? Genius!

don't argue about it
just shush

but that's a far cry

Not really, seems consistent to me.

right that's it, go to your room

I just installed avast and as far as I can tell it wants me to keep registering it every 14 months? The hell is that s*** about? Sure it's still free but screw that. I'm sick of subscription based bulls*** I'M GOING NAKED OUT INTO THE INTERNETS.

parabol your point of view is disturbingly narrow, yes it's possible that the program contains errors, but as you yourself stated there are errors/exploits in so much software that if this kind of paranoia is going to grip you every time you use software then maybe you should just stay away from computers altogether.

Perhaps from your point of view the feature is unnecessary because you can spot most potentially risky sites, but unfortunately the majority of computer users are nowhere near as cluey as you computer-wise. For these people I can see it being a great help.

Luckily for you this is just a single feature, and one that can easily be turned off, if it's one that you don't need then turn it off or don't use the program, there's no need to complain about the feature's existence entirely.

Just as with UAC in Vista, I found it to be a feature I wasn't interested in and got in the way of me doing what I wanted so I turned it off, but I in no way think of it as a bad feature. I would much rather have the option of added security on a computer-illiterate person's PC and simply be able to switch it off on mine, than to not have the option at all.

parabol your point of view is disturbingly narrow, yes it's possible that the program contains errors, but as you yourself stated there are errors/exploits in so much software that if this kind of paranoia is going to grip you every time you use software then maybe you should just stay away from computers altogether.

My view is not disturbing at all, as you missed my fundamental point: it makes contact with sites whether you would have visited them or not. So it can amplify the chance of downloading content from a dodgy site and make it approach 100% the longer you are browsing the internet.

Perhaps from your point of view the feature is unnecessary because you can spot most potentially risky sites, but unfortunately the majority of computer users are nowhere near as cluey as you computer-wise. For these people I can see it being a great help.

Yes it's unnecessary for my own needs, but I still think it's a s***ty solution for the "majority of people". A much better feature in my opinion would have been a transparent proxy that only scans data as it's coming in before the browser gets hold of it, as opposed to pre-emptively scanning everything out there whether you would have clicked it or not. Now that's delving into the area of the full-blown internet security suites.

Summary:

Scanning only content you are about to view > Scanning *all* content you might view.

Perhaps from your point of view the feature is unnecessary because you can spot most potentially risky sites, but unfortunately the majority of computer users are nowhere near as cluey as you computer-wise. For these people I can see it being a great help.

What about when those same users ring up 2x as much data transfer as they were expecting because of this "helpful" feature?!

I really just want my virus scanner to do one thing - check executable files as I'm about to run them. I almost NEVER download closed-source applications any more and NEVER do it from a source that I don't have some trust in, so the chances of me getting viruses are pretty much zero, but I'd like to have that as some small safety net I guess.

yeah I would agree with that parabol

it's far more reasonable than implying that having a virus scanner scan the html source of web pages and having a browser render the same source, are even remotely comparable

A much better feature in my opinion would have been a transparent proxy that only scans data as it's coming in before the browser gets hold of it, as opposed to pre-emptively scanning everything out there whether you would have clicked it or not

Ok I just installed Avast and it seems it does just that: has a transparent proxy.

I'm loving this program. No nagging (yet), packed with features that actually do useful things, simple and snappy interface. Bye bye AVG :)

Does anyone know if you can use the same (free) license key for multiple computers?

last edited by parabol at 10:18:33 22/May/08