AVG fixes fake traffic scans
Software pretended to be human
AFTER MAKING ITSELF the target of much webmaster wrath over the past few months, AVG just announced that the new version of its scanning software will cease churning out inordinate amounts of fake traffic.
The Czech-headquartered security company thought it was being really clever by releasing version eight of its virus-scanning software in February paired up with a real-time malware scanner. The feature meant that all search engine results pulled up by a user would be automatically scanned before even being clicked on, causing massive fake traffic spikes because the scanner hid itself behind users’ IP addresses, disguising itself as a human click, even if a user hadn’t clicked on the search result link to the site.
After 20 million people downloaded AVG 8, web masters started to find it almost impossible to sift through the masses of fake traffic, accumulating ceaselessly in their log files, messing up their website stats and even, in some cases, bumping up the price of their bandwidth packages. Needless to say they were not happy bunnies.
But AVG seems to have taken the vitriolic rantings of the web masters into account, announcing on an Aussie tech discussion forum, Whirlpool, that it would bring out a new version of its software on July 9th, minus the problematic pre-scanning of results tool. The AVG LinkScanner will now apparently "only notify users of malicious sites" and a patch is already being deployed to AVG’s freeware users as we type.
AVG is probably just relieved to put the whole scan-dalous affair behind it. µ
Comments
Still some of the best security software out there
For what its worth, AVG still is the least resource intensive and buggy software in the security space that I know of. They are the most responsive to problems, unlike our friends at symantec and mcafee that consume all CPU and memory, as well as destroy entire systems.Slow even without Linkscanner disabled
They are unfortunately leaving their great roots and turning into terrible bloatware. The new Resident Scanner (avgrsx.exe) every now and again takes up 99% CPU time for about 30 seconds. Unacceptable.Sigh, too bad.
Nice Benchmarks
If we're saying AVG is the best by comparing it to NAV and McCrappy, then sure, it's fantastic. When you compare it to GOOD antivirus programs, it's not bad, but far from the best, and far from the least resource intensive.Beware of the EULA
I used the 7.5 for a while, then they released the v8 update, I started the install but read the new EULA.. let me just say that I use viruskiller AGAINST such thing as they give themselves permission to do, not to have it actually become the malware.AVG...
AVG is crap anyway, does anybody still use it?Look: Free, avg; Good, Eset.
Back when Virus Bulletin was ad-paid-for ( now it's a Give Us All Your Information, Maybe Pay Too, THEN we'll perhaps permit you to see our results... )There was one anti-virus software that always topped 'em all with the 100% awards
( VB's 100% awards were simple: any AV software that caught 100% of all in-the-wild viruses, got it: any that didn't, didn't )
Eset.
http://www.nod32.com/
was where they were at.
I don't know if they're still the best, nor do I know if it's still the same company
( lived in Linux for so long, without Wine, too, that I only get reminded of what price Windoze users pay when I'm working on their systems -- which I don't bother to anymore, since there isn't any hope of winning )
It was also, btw, either the quickest or very nearly the quickest.
LOL
nobody here knows NOD from ESET? nobody checks VirusBulletin? OMGGary Champlain
Would you care to advise us of what "GOOD" memory resident antivirus programs you're comparing?Not the best
While AVG is less resource hungry than Norton or Mcafee, ive also noticed it detects far fewer infected files and can almost never disifect them, it can only delete or quarantine them. There are far many far better and even less resource hungry AVs available, Kaspersky and Trend Micro to name a fewLinkScanner = Off
Turned it off after a day. Slowed my "Internet Experience" right down, with web pages pausing before loading.Pointless, AVG, pointless.
I have found that V8.0 is a backward step compared to the previous versions. I don't believe it is what customers want.
@ Alexander Holland. Haven't had your experience, but we all know that software often does odd things on different computers, even between ones that are running same hardware and same disk images.
fake traffic very real
I saw guy who paid ~100euro more for his 3G data traffic just because of this AVG "fake" traffic behavior which was indeed very real problem in his wallet.To Lindsay
M Smythe already answered this question, although Trend Micro is slipping somewhat.I use primarily Kaspersky and Nod32. Small and fast, and also far more thorough than most of the other options.
Alternatives?
I've been pretty happy with AVG. I had used Avast! previously, but read some article that ranked virus scanners on their resource usage and decided to switch.To everyone saying that AVG "isn't the best": please recommend some alternative FREE, off-line virus scanning software that you think is better.
Gary Champlain
Thanks, I'll be sure to give them a whirl.