So Far, So Good With AVG 2011

[cory34@whocareswhere?]

It is far less intrusive than Avira and Avast were.

What really surprised me was that it caught GRC's Leak Test and
stopped it in its tracks. I was testing Win XP Pro's firewall over at
Gibson's site when this happened. I wanted to see what XP's firewall
would do with that test, but it was AVG that immediately caught the
packets. Surprise!

So far, so good. I kinda like AVG 2011, the paid-for version, that
is. One thing, though, if you go to the page to buy it, and only
download the freebie version, when you go back to buy it, you'll find
the price is no longer the $27.95. For not buying it immediately
before trying out the freebie version, they raise the price on you to
$34.95. I got around it by going to my wife's machine and buying it.
Her machine, I guess, didn't have the "cookie" that told them I had
previously tried the freebie version. I got it for the $27.95 price.
Be warned.

The reason I'm using AVG now is because Avast cheated me out of about
6 months of my two year purchase. I then went with Avira. They
cheated me out of the entire 2nd year of my purchase. Those bastards
expired my license early. When I complained to each of those
companies, they essentially said, TS!

These AV companies are getting to big for their britches.

Oh - I forgot to mention that XP Pro's firewall got a perfect score
over at GRC's site. I never got that good a rating with the firewalls
I had used before, especially on the "leak test".

I think I'll just stick with XP's firewall for now. If I had a few
more IQ points and a bunch more knowledge, I'd get me a hardware
firewall and be done with the nonsense. The prices of the better
software firewalls are upwards of $40.00. Yeah, I hear Comodo is
still free, but I don't trust them with their trying to sneak in other
proggies onto one's machine.

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: <cory34@whocareswhere?>

| It is far less intrusive than Avira and Avast were.

| What really surprised me was that it caught GRC's Leak Test and
| stopped it in its tracks. I was testing Win XP Pro's firewall over at
| Gibson's site when this happened. I wanted to see what XP's firewall
| would do with that test, but it was AVG that immediately caught the
| packets. Surprise!

| So far, so good. I kinda like AVG 2011, the paid-for version, that
| is. One thing, though, if you go to the page to buy it, and only
| download the freebie version, when you go back to buy it, you'll find
| the price is no longer the $27.95. For not buying it immediately
| before trying out the freebie version, they raise the price on you to
| $34.95. I got around it by going to my wife's machine and buying it.
| Her machine, I guess, didn't have the "cookie" that told them I had
| previously tried the freebie version. I got it for the $27.95 price.
| Be warned.

| The reason I'm using AVG now is because Avast cheated me out of about
| 6 months of my two year purchase. I then went with Avira. They
| cheated me out of the entire 2nd year of my purchase. Those bastards
| expired my license early. When I complained to each of those
| companies, they essentially said, TS!

| These AV companies are getting to big for their britches.

| Oh - I forgot to mention that XP Pro's firewall got a perfect score
| over at GRC's site. I never got that good a rating with the firewalls
| I had used before, especially on the "leak test".

| I think I'll just stick with XP's firewall for now. If I had a few
| more IQ points and a bunch more knowledge, I'd get me a hardware
| firewall and be done with the nonsense. The prices of the better
| software firewalls are upwards of $40.00. Yeah, I hear Comodo is
| still free, but I don't trust them with their trying to sneak in other
| proggies onto one's machine.


Thanx but, how is Avira "intrusive" ?

 

[cory34@whocareswhere?]

From: <cory34@whocareswhere?>

| It is far less intrusive than Avira and Avast were.

| What really surprised me was that it caught GRC's Leak Test and
| stopped it in its tracks. I was testing Win XP Pro's firewall over at
| Gibson's site when this happened. I wanted to see what XP's firewall
| would do with that test, but it was AVG that immediately caught the
| packets. Surprise!

| So far, so good. I kinda like AVG 2011, the paid-for version, that
| is. One thing, though, if you go to the page to buy it, and only
| download the freebie version, when you go back to buy it, you'll find
| the price is no longer the $27.95. For not buying it immediately
| before trying out the freebie version, they raise the price on you to
| $34.95. I got around it by going to my wife's machine and buying it.
| Her machine, I guess, didn't have the "cookie" that told them I had
| previously tried the freebie version. I got it for the $27.95 price.
| Be warned.

| The reason I'm using AVG now is because Avast cheated me out of about
| 6 months of my two year purchase. I then went with Avira. They
| cheated me out of the entire 2nd year of my purchase. Those bastards
| expired my license early. When I complained to each of those
| companies, they essentially said, TS!

| These AV companies are getting to big for their britches.

| Oh - I forgot to mention that XP Pro's firewall got a perfect score
| over at GRC's site. I never got that good a rating with the firewalls
| I had used before, especially on the "leak test".

| I think I'll just stick with XP's firewall for now. If I had a few
| more IQ points and a bunch more knowledge, I'd get me a hardware
| firewall and be done with the nonsense. The prices of the better
| software firewalls are upwards of $40.00. Yeah, I hear Comodo is
| still free, but I don't trust them with their trying to sneak in other
| proggies onto one's machine.


Thanx but, how is Avira "intrusive" ?

It kept popping up a heck of a lot more than does AVG. On top of that,
it's hell to keep it from deleting a file it erroneously thought was
infected. In AVG, the choice of not deleting or removing to the
'vault' is easy as heck. It's menus are also more understandable to
me. That's just me. I ain't no AV guru, just a user who wants to
have menus easily understood, and have just as easy control over its
efforts to delete or keep it from moving a file in its vault. I'm
not speaking "intellectually" as to AVG over the others, but merely my
personal "feel" when using it. I like it.

(The files I am referring to as being misread by my AV program are
ones I have used for many years with no problems. So no AV program is
going to tell me they're infected or dangerous in anyway. I would
have found that out long ago if it were true.)

I had used Kaspersky since the days when "Central Command", who was
in one of the Dakotas, was distributing it here in the U.S. But
Kaspersky, as of a couple of years ago, became a pain in the arse to
use, and a bigger pain in the arse when trying to get support for a
problem. Those jerks didn't understand English enough to answer the
questions I asked, but, instead, kept giving me canned answers that
had nothing to do with the problem I had explained to them. I dropped
them and went with Avast. Avast's menus were a puzzle in many ways,
especially that crap where they insist on adding their advertising to
in/out email and posts. Anyway, I had comprehension problems with
much of its menu choices. When they screwed me by expiring my license
months early, plus refused to address the problem except to tell me
how to renew my license - for a fee for another year, I sent them a
nasty email telling them what crooks they were. I hope to heck AVG
doesn't play the early expiration game on me, too. I have a very bad
feeling about AV companies these days after these experiences. No more
will I ever buy a 2 year license. I have always used the paid
versions of AV programs. I figure that AV protection is no place to
play cheapskate and use freebies.

That's my story, and I'm sticking with it . )

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: <cory34@whocareswhere?>

| On Fri, 5 Nov 2010 16:23:06 -0400, "David H. Lipman"

| It kept popping up a heck of a lot more than does AVG. On top of that,
| it's hell to keep it from deleting a file it erroneously thought was
| infected. In AVG, the choice of not deleting or removing to the
| 'vault' is easy as heck. It's menus are also more understandable to
| me. That's just me. I ain't no AV guru, just a user who wants to
| have menus easily understood, and have just as easy control over its
| efforts to delete or keep it from moving a file in its vault. I'm
| not speaking "intellectually" as to AVG over the others, but merely my
| personal "feel" when using it. I like it.

| (The files I am referring to as being misread by my AV program are
| ones I have used for many years with no problems. So no AV program is
| going to tell me they're infected or dangerous in anyway. I would
| have found that out long ago if it were true.)

| I had used Kaspersky since the days when "Central Command", who was
| in one of the Dakotas, was distributing it here in the U.S. But
| Kaspersky, as of a couple of years ago, became a pain in the arse to
| use, and a bigger pain in the arse when trying to get support for a
| problem. Those jerks didn't understand English enough to answer the
| questions I asked, but, instead, kept giving me canned answers that
| had nothing to do with the problem I had explained to them. I dropped
| them and went with Avast. Avast's menus were a puzzle in many ways,
| especially that crap where they insist on adding their advertising to
| in/out email and posts. Anyway, I had comprehension problems with
| much of its menu choices. When they screwed me by expiring my license
| months early, plus refused to address the problem except to tell me
| how to renew my license - for a fee for another year, I sent them a
| nasty email telling them what crooks they were. I hope to heck AVG
| doesn't play the early expiration game on me, too. I have a very bad
| feeling about AV companies these days after these experiences. No more
| will I ever buy a 2 year license. I have always used the paid
| versions of AV programs. I figure that AV protection is no place to
| play cheapskate and use freebies.

| That's my story, and I'm sticking with it . )

Thank you.

 

[FromTheRafters]

[...]

(The files I am referring to as being misread by my AV program are
ones I have used for many years with no problems. So no AV program is
going to tell me they're infected or dangerous in anyway. I would
have found that out long ago if it were true.)

I think I know what you are saying here (false positives on known good
files), but as this is a virus group, it bears mentioning that actual
file infecting viruses could indeed make your once clean and trusted
programs into *viruses* - that's what viruses do - not like the malware
crap you mostly have to deal with today. The fact is, a virus could
possibly be found in a program that you yourself wrote and can vouch for
as having been benign (or at least non-viral) in the past. There may be
no outward indication that you have a virus. Most malware these days
wants to use your computing power to make money for themselves, such
obvious behavior is indeed noticeable, but how would you notice a virus
which when executed just becomes resident and waits for some trigger
event?

[...]

 

[gufus]

Hello, David!

You wrote on Fri, 5 Nov 2010 17:37:33 -0400:

|> That's my story, and I'm sticking with it . )
|
| Thank you.
|
Quite the story eh

 

[cory34@whocareswhere?]

Hello, David!

You wrote on Fri, 5 Nov 2010 17:37:33 -0400:

|> That's my story, and I'm sticking with it . )
|
| Thank you.
|
Quite the story eh

My wife found a problem with running AVG's Safe Search extension for
Mozilla. (I'm using FF 3.6.12)

She frequents caloriecount.com. The portion of the program which
converts ounces to grams - or converting any amounts to another
measurement, would not work with the AVG Safe Search extension
installed. As soon as we uninstalled it, the Web page worked fine in
figuring out the calories.

Just thought I'd mention it.

 

[cory34@whocareswhere?]

My wife found a problem with running AVG's Safe Search extension for
Mozilla. (I'm using FF 3.6.12)

She frequents caloriecount.com. The portion of the program which
converts ounces to grams - or converting any amounts to another
measurement, would not work with the AVG Safe Search extension
installed. As soon as we uninstalled it, the Web page worked fine in
figuring out the calories.

Just thought I'd mention it.

Well, I found another peculiarity with AVG 2011.

This one, I don't care for at all.

In order to scan a single file, you have to go to TOOLS|SCAN FILE
and then pick the file from an explorer type interface. That's not the
way every other AV I've used did it. I hoping I'm wrong on this, but
I know right click does not do it. It ends up scanning a bunch of
other files on the C: drive, including a registry scan, and somehow,
the file you did want scanned *is* included in this scan. The scan
takes over a minute. I have never seen this method before. Only if
you use the TOOLS menu will it do the single file you want scanned.

From past experience with questioning AV companies "support", I'm
hesitant to find out that AVG's "support" will be the same as the
others, but I have no other choice.

Any AVG 2011 users in here that might show me I'm wrong?

 

[cory34@whocareswhere?]

Well, I found another peculiarity with AVG 2011.

This one, I don't care for at all.

In order to scan a single file, you have to go to TOOLS|SCAN FILE
and then pick the file from an explorer type interface. That's not the
way every other AV I've used did it. I hoping I'm wrong on this, but
I know right click does not do it. It ends up scanning a bunch of
other files on the C: drive, including a registry scan, and somehow,
the file you did want scanned *is* included in this scan. The scan
takes over a minute. I have never seen this method before. Only if
you use the TOOLS menu will it do the single file you want scanned.

From past experience with questioning AV companies "support", I'm
hesitant to find out that AVG's "support" will be the same as the
others, but I have no other choice.

Any AVG 2011 users in here that might show me I'm wrong?

I found that AVG has a forum. I dumped this post into there. Let's
see what comes of it. (I cannot believe this is the only way to scan a
single file in AVG.)

 

[Dave Cohen]

[...]

(The files I am referring to as being misread by my AV program are
ones I have used for many years with no problems. So no AV program is
going to tell me they're infected or dangerous in anyway. I would
have found that out long ago if it were true.)

I think I know what you are saying here (false positives on known good
files), but as this is a virus group, it bears mentioning that actual
file infecting viruses could indeed make your once clean and trusted
programs into *viruses* - that's what viruses do - not like the malware
crap you mostly have to deal with today. The fact is, a virus could
possibly be found in a program that you yourself wrote and can vouch for
as having been benign (or at least non-viral) in the past. There may be
no outward indication that you have a virus. Most malware these days
wants to use your computing power to make money for themselves, such
obvious behavior is indeed noticeable, but how would you notice a virus
which when executed just becomes resident and waits for some trigger
event?

[...]

I had an old dos file that Avira insisted was suspicious, I finally
deleted it. Probably some heuristic scan.
I don't find Avira intrusive, but latest download seems to have removed
option to ignore autorun on flash drives. I would never pay for virus
protection on a home pc.
I'm seriously thinking of switching to MS Essentials. Tried it on a test
partition and doesn't seem to slow things down, it does use a little
more memory than latest Avira which in turn is using more than previous
version.

 

[Dragon]

My installation of AVG 2011 still has the "Scan with AVG" item on the
right click menu and it just scans the one file. The installation was an
update to a AVG 9 installation.
Tony

I'll second that!
I have the free version.
Henry

 

[cory34@whocareswhere?]

My installation of AVG 2011 still has the "Scan with AVG" item on the right
click menu and it just scans the one file. The installation was an update to
a AVG 9 installation.
Tony

I also have it there. But if scans not just the one file I want it to,
but a whole bunch more.

 

[cory34@whocareswhere?]

I also have it there. But if scans not just the one file I want it to,
but a whole bunch more.

I've uploaded a jpg of my right click result into alt.test.binaries
under the subject: - AVG RIGHT CLICK

- If anyone cares to take a look at it.

 

[cory34@whocareswhere?]

I've uploaded a jpg of my right click result into alt.test.binaries
under the subject: - AVG RIGHT CLICK

- If anyone cares to take a look at it.

I again checked the settings in Scan Specific Files Or Folders.

I find nothing there that points to an erroneous setting that would do
this.

 

[gufus]

Hello, cory34@whocareswhere?!

You wrote on Sun, 07 Nov 2010 07:41:05 -0600:

|
| Well, I found another peculiarity with AVG 2011.
|
| This one, I don't care for at all.
|

I use Avira my self... (your millage may vary)

 

[cory34@whocareswhere?]

I again checked the settings in Scan Specific Files Or Folders.

I find nothing there that points to an erroneous setting that would do
this.

And there still isn't any answer in the AVG forum I posted to.
http://www.avgforums.com/viewforum.php?f=2

I'm considering reinstalling the bugger to see if that fixes it, since
others seem to have theirs working properly. This can't possibly be
the way it was designed to work.

 

[FromTheRafters]

[...]

Just to avoid missing the obvious, it will (should) scan many files if
the filetype is an archive (e.g., CAB, ZIP, RAR, ARC, JAR, ...)
)

 

[cory34@whocareswhere?]

[...]

Just to avoid missing the obvious, it will (should) scan many files if
the filetype is an archive (e.g., CAB, ZIP, RAR, ARC, JAR, ...)
)

Not over 800,000 including registry and windows dir files.

 

[Gary Dingle]

Well, I found another peculiarity with AVG 2011.

This one, I don't care for at all.

In order to scan a single file, you have to go to TOOLS|SCAN FILE
and then pick the file from an explorer type interface. That's not the
way every other AV I've used did it. I hoping I'm wrong on this, but
I know right click does not do it. It ends up scanning a bunch of
other files on the C: drive, including a registry scan, and somehow,
the file you did want scanned *is* included in this scan. The scan
takes over a minute. I have never seen this method before. Only if
you use the TOOLS menu will it do the single file you want scanned.

From past experience with questioning AV companies "support", I'm
hesitant to find out that AVG's "support" will be the same as the
others, but I have no other choice.

Any AVG 2011 users in here that might show me I'm wrong?

Under Tools/Advanced Settings / Scans / Shell Extension Scan
uncheck "Scan system environment" & that should do the trick
Cheers
Gary

 

[cory34@whocareswhere?]

Under Tools/Advanced Settings / Scans / Shell Extension Scan
uncheck "Scan system environment" & that should do the trick
Cheers
Gary

BINGO!!!

That did it!

Thanks for answering. )