AVG Anti-Virus.....New Version.

blackworx · Post by **blackworx** » Sun May 18, 2008 1:24 am

mellon wrote:where does this bandwidth actually come from?

Excellent question. I had been tempted just to leave the bloody thing switched on as it didn't affect my surfing too much, but if it's turning every Google results page into a 4MB monster then I too would like to know where that bandwidth is coming from!

Is the client using local bandwidth to grab the page source of every hit for analysis? Seems likely as I can't see AVG taking on that amount of bandwidth - especially for a piece of software which, by Grisoft's own reckoning, is installed on over 40m PCs. Even if all those machines were used to make just one search request a week (and found what they wanted on the first page of results) that'd be a hell of a lot of data to take on.

sjoukew · Post by **sjoukew** » Sun May 18, 2008 4:51 am

Well, the problem is that it indeed takes a hell of a time before the entire google page is loaded.
I tried wireshark and looked if I could figure out what is happening.
I captured everything happening between the start of the google question and the end of the pageload.
It is remarkable that every IP of the website which is in the google result is accessed and the contents of every page is in the packets.
I think that AVG downloads all pages from the google search results and scans them. When that is finished the scan results are inserted in the google page.
That would explain the bandwidth, the packets and the functionality. And AVG themselves don't have to pay for the bandwidth.

I wonder what is happening to the page visit statistics from web pages ... ... ...

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Sun May 18, 2008 5:27 am

sjoukew wrote:It is remarkable that every IP of the website which is in the google result is accessed and the contents of every page is in the packets.
I think that AVG downloads all pages from the google search results and scans them. When that is finished the scan results are inserted in the google page.
That would explain the bandwidth, the packets and the functionality. And AVG themselves don't have to pay for the bandwidth.

I wonder what is happening to the page visit statistics from web pages ... ... ...

Heh, that's nice. AV software with built-in DDoS attack.

blackworx · Post by **blackworx** » Sun May 18, 2008 5:59 am

Erssa wrote:Heh, that's nice. AV software with built-in DDoS attack.

lol

sjoukew wrote:Well, the problem is that it indeed takes a hell of a time before the entire google page is loaded.

True, but you can click away at any time. It doesn't slow the initial display of the actual results - thank god - it just takes forever to add a whole load of animated bloat to the original page.

Uninformed users will see this whole gimmick as a real benefit and be lulled into an even greater sense of false security. Education 0 Ignorance 1

dragmor · Post by **dragmor** » Sun May 18, 2008 9:00 pm

sjoukew wrote:I think that AVG downloads all pages from the google search results and scans them. When that is finished the scan results are inserted in the google page.
That would explain the bandwidth, the packets and the functionality. And AVG themselves don't have to pay for the bandwidth.

And a very good reason for those of us in countries that charge via bandwidth used to turn off the feature and live with the stupid red x in the task bar, or switch to avast.

Bandwidth is not free, I get charged for uploads and downloads.

blackworx · Post by **blackworx** » Sun May 18, 2008 10:03 pm

dragmor wrote:turn off the feature and live with the stupid red x in the task bar

I've turned it off and permanently hidden the AVG systray icon to get rid of the red "!". If any real error condition occurs (like a failed update) the new tray message "feature" will tell me.

mbetea · Post by **mbetea** » Mon May 19, 2008 9:53 pm

Here's another free one, I've heard is pretty good. Never have used it yet as I'm still using AVG.

http://www.free-av.com/

mellon · Post by **mellon** » Wed May 21, 2008 10:39 am

sjoukew wrote: I tried wireshark and looked if I could figure out what is happening.
I captured everything happening between the start of the google question and the end of the pageload.
It is remarkable that every IP of the website which is in the google result is accessed and the contents of every page is in the packets.
I think that AVG downloads all pages from the google search results and scans them. When that is finished the scan results are inserted in the google page.
That would explain the bandwidth, the packets and the functionality. And AVG themselves don't have to pay for the bandwidth.

I wonder what is happening to the page visit statistics from web pages ... ... ...

Thanks for taking the time to look into it. In a way scanning the result content is a reliable way to check of there are any obvious dangers at the target website, but AVG might not be able to follow complex redirects or other non-obvious attack paths, so the whole point is kind of moot. Anyway it cannot download _everything_ from the target website as it might quite easily contain tens of megabytes of data.

Using that kind of bandwidth just to show ok/not ok tags next to search results is intolerable. I'll certainly switch to another virus scanner when the support for 7.5 ends.

Michael Sandstrom · Post by **Michael Sandstrom** » Wed May 21, 2008 12:49 pm

mellon wrote: Using that kind of bandwidth just to show ok/not ok tags next to search results is intolerable. I'll certainly switch to another virus scanner when the support for 7.5 ends.

Hello melton,

The new AVG 8.0 function that does this scanning is an option that can be omitted. Refer to the Tweaking Companion on the Tweak Guides site for info on configuring AVG for unobtrusive operation.

mellon · Post by **mellon** » Fri May 23, 2008 3:42 pm

Michael Sandstrom wrote: The new AVG 8.0 function that does this scanning is an option that can be omitted. Refer to the Tweaking Companion on the Tweak Guides site for info on configuring AVG for unobtrusive operation.

Yes, it can be omitted but if the program then shows an error state in the tray icon it is still annoying, even though tray icons can be hidden. Overall the free AV "market" is decent nowadays: there is no need to stick with AVG if they downgrade their product so that it becomes annoying.

I for one tend to back away from products that try to overstep their main competence boundaries. As an aside integrated firewall+AV+whatever programs all tend to be more or less horrible, I've seen enough otherwise clean systems screwed up by Norton/F-Secure software to avoid them.

nick705 · Post by **nick705** » Fri May 23, 2008 3:53 pm

mellon wrote: Yes, it can be omitted but if the program then shows an error state in the tray icon it is still annoying, even though tray icons can be hidden.

If you run the setup program with the switches "/REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSurf /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSearch" it won't be installed at all, and you'll have an uncorrupted tray icon.

Still annoying that it should be necessary though...

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Fri May 23, 2008 7:19 pm

I use AVG Free v7.5 on WinXP Pro, with only the avgamsvr.exe service running (control center disabled). Don't really need an AV program, but since others sometimes uses my system I want some kind of basic protection. Run this way I find it very easy on the system, it's not worthless bloat like for example NAV.

blackworx · Post by **blackworx** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 4:19 am

Seems we're not the only ones to notice

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/13 ... c_numbers/

josephclemente · Post by **josephclemente** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 4:42 pm

nick705 wrote:If you run the setup program with the switches "/REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSurf /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSearch" it won't be installed at all, and you'll have an uncorrupted tray icon.

Thank you for that post - I will definitely make use of those switches!

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 11:10 pm

Bluefront wrote:Get it soon. Shortly the old 7.5 version will not update any longer. It's still free, and now combines the anti-virus program with their anti-spyware and malware program. The new version is working fine for me so far.....nice program, nice price.

...or you can just patch your computer regularly, not open strange email attachments, and not download weird executable programs. (i.e. common sense). It's free, and it lacks layered service providers infiltrating your network stack and causing random application crashes.

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 12:09 am

That last theory sounds good....... but only if you are the only person using the computer. I installed and ran AVG 7.5 on a guy's computer recently.....was running real slow, with many problems. The program found 32 different virus infections. Too bad for him....too late. Had to reinstall the OS...

He has three teenage daughters....

nick705 · Post by **nick705** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 2:20 am

Beyonder wrote: ...or you can just patch your computer regularly, not open strange email attachments, and not download weird executable programs. (i.e. common sense). It's free, and it lacks layered service providers infiltrating your network stack and causing random application crashes.

Common sense is all well and good, and should definitely be the first line of defence, but we're none of us infallible and in possession of total concentration at all times (at least I'm not). A decent AV just provides a safety net for those occasions when you might not be 100% on top of the game, and accidentally or thoughtlessly click on something you shouldn't (easily done, maybe not even realising what's happened until much later when it's too late).

Apart from that, as exploits and malware keep getting more sophisticated, even the most clued-up of web users won't always recognise what represents a threat and what doesn't. The whole attitude of "I know what I'm doing, I don't need an AV, I've never had a virus, it'll never happen to me" seems a bit complacent IMHO...

blackworx · Post by **blackworx** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 11:23 pm

Looks like they'll be stopping this behaviour...

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-re ... 29&p=2#r38
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/07 ... e_traffic/

quikkie · Post by **quikkie** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 8:22 am

they already have in the free version.

also tweakable from setup is the email scanning - no windows machine of mine will be downloading email so I was glad I could turn that off.

There's also a couple of files that if you rename them the annoying advert "information tab" will not appear. Rename 'avgmwdef_us.mht' and 'avgresf.dll' in the AVG program folder by adding something to the end of each - I renamed mine to .ANNOYING which seemed appropriate and easy to find if I want to reverse the procedure.

AVG Anti-Virus.....New Version.

Re: AVG Anti-Virus.....New Version.

Re: AVG Anti-Virus.....New Version.