AVG 8.0 Free, problems and observations.

[Jack]

XP Home. AVG v. 8.0.100 installed over 7.5, toolbar not installed.

1. At system startup the resident scanner process (avgrsx.exe) runs
fluctuating at near to full CPU usage for almost three minutes, making the
system unusable for this time and doubling the boot interval. I can find
nowhere in advanced settings to turn off this boot / startup scan. Also at
rest the memory commit has risen by around 25 mb since install.

2. I prefer to update manually and not by schedule and so have disabled the
update manager which puts a red exclaimation mark over the AVG tray monitor
which is unsightly and would cover any real error notification. Same is true
for disabling any other module, such as the linkscanner or e-mail scanner.
Version 7.5 had a means to turn off similar systray false error messages
which were in fact user selectable preferences.

3. Scanning any file via the shell extension throws up the main user
interface showing the total shell extension scan results which feels like an
ad together with two tray notifications, the first of which says only that
the shell extension has been started and the second gives the results. The
tray notications can be turned off in settings but I can find no way to stop
the main interface jumping on screen and also can not kill the obvious
'shell extension was started' popup without also removing the results tray
notification.

4. When the user interface is opened it appears to select excitingly random
screen locations unrelated to the last position it took at close and often
partly off screen. Also the hide notification for the fun promotional
info-block at the base of the interface only holds for that incarnation and
deselects for the next show.

If I have missed any solutions to these problems I would be very grateful to
know. Thanks.


--

 

[Kayman]

XP Home. AVG v. 8.0.100 installed over 7.5, toolbar not installed.

1. At system startup the resident scanner process (avgrsx.exe) runs
fluctuating at near to full CPU usage for almost three minutes, making the
system unusable for this time and doubling the boot interval. I can find
nowhere in advanced settings to turn off this boot / startup scan. Also at
rest the memory commit has risen by around 25 mb since install.

2. I prefer to update manually and not by schedule and so have disabled the
update manager which puts a red exclaimation mark over the AVG tray monitor
which is unsightly and would cover any real error notification. Same is true
for disabling any other module, such as the linkscanner or e-mail scanner.
Version 7.5 had a means to turn off similar systray false error messages
which were in fact user selectable preferences.

3. Scanning any file via the shell extension throws up the main user
interface showing the total shell extension scan results which feels like an
ad together with two tray notifications, the first of which says only that
the shell extension has been started and the second gives the results. The
tray notications can be turned off in settings but I can find no way to stop
the main interface jumping on screen and also can not kill the obvious
'shell extension was started' popup without also removing the results tray
notification.

4. When the user interface is opened it appears to select excitingly random
screen locations unrelated to the last position it took at close and often
partly off screen. Also the hide notification for the fun promotional
info-block at the base of the interface only holds for that incarnation and
deselects for the next show.

If I have missed any solutions to these problems I would be very grateful to
know. Thanks.

AVG Free Forum
http://forum.grisoft.cz/freeforum/index.php?0

 

[colin.e.buckley]

XP Home. AVG v. 8.0.100 installed over 7.5, toolbar not installed.

1. At system startup the resident scanner process (avgrsx.exe) runs
fluctuating at near to full CPU usage for almost three minutes, making the
system unusable for this time and doubling the boot interval. I can find
nowhere in advanced settings to turn off this boot / startup scan. Also at
rest the memory commit has risen by around 25 mb since install.

2. I prefer to update manually and not by schedule and so have disabled the
update manager which puts a red exclaimation mark over the AVG tray monitor
which is unsightly and would cover any real error notification. Same is true
for disabling any other module, such as the linkscanner or e-mail scanner.
Version 7.5 had a means to turn off similar systray false error messages
which were in fact user selectable preferences.

3. Scanning any file via the shell extension throws up the main user
interface showing the total shell extension scan results which feels like an
ad together with two tray notifications, the first of which says only that
the shell extension has been started and the second gives the results. The
tray notications can be turned off in settings but I can find no way to stop
the main interface jumping on screen and also can not kill the obvious
'shell extension was started' popup without also removing the results tray
notification.

4. When the user interface is opened it appears to select excitingly random
screen locations unrelated to the last position it took at close and often
partly off screen. Also the hide notification for the fun promotional
info-block at the base of the interface only holds for that incarnation and
deselects for the next show.

If I have missed any solutions to these problems I would be very grateful to
know. Thanks.

--

Just upgraded to AVG 8.0 and immediately uninstalled it!!

Having been and supporter of AVG for many years it seems they have now
lost the plot completely with 8.0. After installation it immediately
became obvious that applications ran slower, but worse still it locked-
up our company's wireless router/firewall crashing everyone out, must
be a kind of traffic overload! Whatever the cause, deactivating AVG
had no effect, but the moment it was uninstalled everything worked
again as normal.

There is now way that I can afford to let AVG cripple my PC's
performance this way, in fact it would be quicker to install AVG, run
a full virus scan and then uninstall it for the times that a full
system scan is required. The attraction of AVG was that it could be
turned on/off at will, what’s the point of buying a quad core system
just have it become a virus checker!

AVG has now joined the ranks of Norton Symantec which was ditched same
reason - it interfered with the OS too much and couldn’t be simply be
deactivated. Norton was worse though it permanently damaged Windows
which needed a full HD format and re-install.
Perhaps a "Yoggie" system would be better? Sadly I've never met anyone
who has used it or recommended it.

Anyway can we have the old AVG back? To be honest I liked AVG and
nearly bought it, the reason I didn’t was over the worry about the
full version hooking into everything, how glad I am now that I didn’t!

 

[Henk]

Hence my reason to dump AVG for Avast, after many years of use.
Avast is really doing what AVG did in the past and with the amount of
mistakes AVG has had in the past, I should have dumped it much ealier.

XP Home. AVG v. 8.0.100 installed over 7.5, toolbar not installed.

1. At system startup the resident scanner process (avgrsx.exe) runs
fluctuating at near to full CPU usage for almost three minutes, making the
system unusable for this time and doubling the boot interval. I can find
nowhere in advanced settings to turn off this boot / startup scan. Also at
rest the memory commit has risen by around 25 mb since install.

2. I prefer to update manually and not by schedule and so have disabled
the
update manager which puts a red exclaimation mark over the AVG tray
monitor
which is unsightly and would cover any real error notification. Same is
true
for disabling any other module, such as the linkscanner or e-mail scanner.
Version 7.5 had a means to turn off similar systray false error messages
which were in fact user selectable preferences.

3. Scanning any file via the shell extension throws up the main user
interface showing the total shell extension scan results which feels like
an
ad together with two tray notifications, the first of which says only that
the shell extension has been started and the second gives the results. The
tray notications can be turned off in settings but I can find no way to
stop
the main interface jumping on screen and also can not kill the obvious
'shell extension was started' popup without also removing the results tray
notification.

4. When the user interface is opened it appears to select excitingly
random
screen locations unrelated to the last position it took at close and often
partly off screen. Also the hide notification for the fun promotional
info-block at the base of the interface only holds for that incarnation
and
deselects for the next show.

If I have missed any solutions to these problems I would be very grateful
to
know. Thanks.

--

Just upgraded to AVG 8.0 and immediately uninstalled it!!

Having been and supporter of AVG for many years it seems they have now
lost the plot completely with 8.0. After installation it immediately
became obvious that applications ran slower, but worse still it locked-
up our company's wireless router/firewall crashing everyone out, must
be a kind of traffic overload! Whatever the cause, deactivating AVG
had no effect, but the moment it was uninstalled everything worked
again as normal.

There is now way that I can afford to let AVG cripple my PC's
performance this way, in fact it would be quicker to install AVG, run
a full virus scan and then uninstall it for the times that a full
system scan is required. The attraction of AVG was that it could be
turned on/off at will, what’s the point of buying a quad core system
just have it become a virus checker!

AVG has now joined the ranks of Norton Symantec which was ditched same
reason - it interfered with the OS too much and couldn’t be simply be
deactivated. Norton was worse though it permanently damaged Windows
which needed a full HD format and re-install.
Perhaps a "Yoggie" system would be better? Sadly I've never met anyone
who has used it or recommended it.

Anyway can we have the old AVG back? To be honest I liked AVG and
nearly bought it, the reason I didn’t was over the worry about the
full version hooking into everything, how glad I am now that I didn’t!

 

[Judicandus]

XP Home. AVG v. 8.0.100 installed over 7.5, toolbar not installed.

1. At system startup the resident scanner process (avgrsx.exe) runs
fluctuating at near to full CPU usage for almost three minutes, making the
system unusable for this time and doubling the boot interval. I can find
nowhere in advanced settings to turn off this boot / startup scan. Also at
rest the memory commit has risen by around 25 mb since install.

2. I prefer to update manually and not by schedule and so have disabled the
update manager which puts a red exclaimation mark over the AVG tray monitor
which is unsightly and would cover any real error notification. Same is true
for disabling any other module, such as the linkscanner or e-mail scanner.
Version 7.5 had a means to turn off similar systray false error messages
which were in fact user selectable preferences.

3. Scanning any file via the shell extension throws up the main user
interface showing the total shell extension scan results which feels like an
ad together with two tray notifications, the first of which says only that
the shell extension has been started and the second gives the results. The
tray notications can be turned off in settings but I can find no way to stop
the main interface jumping on screen and also can not kill the obvious
'shell extension was started' popup without also removing the results tray
notification.

4. When the user interface is opened it appears to select excitingly random
screen locations unrelated to the last position it took at close and often
partly off screen. Also the hide notification for the fun promotional
info-block at the base of the interface only holds for that incarnation and
deselects for the next show.

If I have missed any solutions to these problems I would be very grateful to
know. Thanks.

--

Hi Jack,

All I can say is that regarding your point number 2 (most probably
this is already written in the forum somewhere), but this
functionality was required by many users and the possibility to ignore
a component's state will be possible in a month or two (not completely
sure about the timetable for AVG free).

Regarding to point 1, I guess 25 mb should be normal? About the 100%
CPU, try uninstalling the Email scanner component (if installed).

As regarding to the other behavior there hasn't been much mentioned
about those. In general though, AVG 8.0 should be much better in
comparison to AVG 7.5 mainly regarding threats detection.

Hope it was of any help,

 

[Jon Purkey]

Hence my reason to dump AVG for Avast, after many years of use.
Avast is really doing what AVG did in the past and with the amount of
mistakes AVG has had in the past, I should have dumped it much ealier.

I just made the switch to Avast myself. After I installed AVG 8 every
web page started taking 3 to 5 seconds to begin loading. Actual load
speed was fine, but the start delay was driving me nuts. With Avast it
is almost instant, maybe a tad slower than with no Anti-Virus program,
but I can't (or at least shouldn't) do that. Email seems to pull
quicker too and I was blaming the email slowdown on Verizon when it
may of been the last (7.5) AVG update.

Next thing to go might be Zone Alarm. With the router I just mainly
need a good outbound firewall to control program access without taking
a lot of resources.