AVG LinkScanner - Frustration of webmasters

[admin]

AVG's LinkScanner component has been causing a lot of headaches for webmasters, due to excessive bandwidth usage and a quite unethical use of forged HTTP user-agent headers (plus they didn't even get it right by adding an extra "User-Agent" to the front of the normal agent string).

More information about this here:

http://www.avg-watch.org/

Digital Digest has been affected, but not in a huge way as described by other sites. I'm still investigating what other problems it has been causing.

[cynthia]

One of the crappiest functions I've seen for a long time. Upgraded to ver 8 and then the following week IE7 crashed very often (to often than normal.... ) until I found the AVG LinkScanner plugin that could be disabled.

[admin]

Unlike McAfee's SiteAdvisor which stores scan results over time, the LinkScanner plugin scans website in realtime - this means everything you refresh a google results page, for example, LinkScanner accesses every link on that page once. Refresh again, and it accesses those links again a second time. The amount of bandwidth this wastes is amazing, not to mention it slows down web browsing.

A somewhat clever person can also easily launch a denial of service attack just by refreshing Google's results page with LinkScanner activated!

[cynthia]

Can't be funny to have such a function enabled if you pay for the actual amount of bandwidth that you use.

[DrinkOrDie]

I've noticed the slowdown with link scanner enabled. I find link scanner annoying. What's also annoying is the fact that if you disable it, your AVG tray icon constantly shows a state of error. Also, it flags certain sites as dangerous, asking if you want to continue anyway. I've never had any trouble from these sites it flags as dangerous.

[cynthia]

Let it be activated in AVG, but inactivate the plugins in your browser(s).

In IE7 it's Tools menu -> Addons

[gonwk]

Hi folks,

I actually installed the AVG 8.0 Free Edition the other day on my Brand Spanking New laptop ... I am still running IE6.0 ... and I am not yet using my lappy to get online ... until I get it totally straight and protected ...

But after I saw you guys post I just opened my IE and I saw AVG has installed its own "BAR" in my IE ...

Q1: Is there a way to not to have this thing installed in my IE6 and even my FireFox?

Q2: Is AVG still a good prodcut to use or should I junk it and look for another Freeware protection?

Q3: has anyone used Advanced Windows Care?

Thanks,

G!

[cynthia]

If I remember it right there was an option when you install AVG 8 to not install the "BAR".

[Bay_wolf]

Lets just say that on my dial-up internet connection AVG 8 slowed my computer and internet browsing to an extremely low speed so I uninstalled it and installed Avast Home Edition and haven't looked back. AVG really took a bad turn with their new product.

Regards,
Bay_wolf.

[blutach]

I got big problems with AVG too (sceduled scan finishes in under 1 second and scans nothing at all!!!). If anyone can help me - see this.

Regards

[Dan]

I used AVG 8 for about 20 minutes,lol. had most of the same problems already mentioned. Good to see it wasn't garbage on only my computer.

[atifsh]

since i switched to avast 4.8 im happy, turned 6 ppl i know and they are happy...........
first thing i did after install though is turnoff VRDB generation and combined icons....

[DrinkOrDie]

I got big problems with AVG too (sceduled scan finishes in under 1 second and scans nothing at all!!!). If anyone can help me - see this.

Regards

Hey blu, does that only happen on a scheduled scan? Does it happen when you manually start a scan of "whole computer" ?

[gonwk]

i switched to avast 4.8 im happy...........
first thing i did after install though is turnoff VRDB generation and combined icons....

Hi Atifsh,

Turning Off VRDB ... what the heck is that ... !!!!

I plan to uninstall AVG8 and get AVAST 4.8 (whatever Free Version is the latest).

Q: Since I am not that savvy with these tools ... can I just leave it in "Standrad" install mode!?!?

Thanks,
G!

[blutach]

@DrinkOrDie

It happens on a scheduled scan. It happened 3 days ago, then the day after it was OK, then the next day, nothing scanned and this morning, OK! Mind of its own, eh?

I plan to do a manual scan later and also the various partial scans rdsok has suggested.

Regards