AVG users BEWARE

[Alex Clayton]

I don't what else to tell you, I'm reporting my experience on 2
machines. It slowed them down so much they were un-usable.

Besides, I'm not sure I want all my 'eggs' in a Microsoft 'basket'. For
them to make an A/V utility is really kind of an oxymoron.

If another works I guess it should be fine. I oft hear from the people
who seem to "know" that a couple of the free ones work fine. The only
reason i switched the MS was to put all in one so to speak. The only
real trouble I ever had with others was when MS would do some update.
Some times it would take the 3d party people a while to find a way for
their stuff to play nice with the new MS.
MS as far as I know does not create viruses. The Windows platform is
of course hit much more with them since they have something like 90+% of
the market. Why would someone want to spend a lot of time writing
Mal-ware for something that only has a few percent of the market. I just
figured MS would be less likely to put out an update that screwed up
their own AV. If they ever do I guess it's nice that there are still
free choices to switch to though. The only problem I had with Avast was
Rosetta Stone. If I did a quick scan nothing happened, but if I did a
full scan it would set off alarms calling the program a virus. No big
deal as I only rarely did the full scan, and I am sure they must have
fixed this by now.

--
I met a Genie today that said she would grant me one wish.

"I want to live forever," I said.

"Sorry," said the Genie, "I'm not allowed to grant wishes like that!"

"Fine," I said, "then I want to die after Congress gets their heads out
of their a$$e$!"

"You crafty bastard," said the Genie.

 

[Char Jackson]

The only problem I had with Avast was
Rosetta Stone. If I did a quick scan nothing happened, but if I did a
full scan it would set off alarms calling the program a virus. No big
deal as I only rarely did the full scan, and I am sure they must have
fixed this by now.

Regardless of which antimalware program you use, the usual way to
address that situation is to create an exception so that the false
positive doesn't keep popping up.

 

[Alex Clayton]

Regardless of which antimalware program you use, the usual way to
address that situation is to create an exception so that the false
positive doesn't keep popping up.

I have no doubt there was some way to do this back then. It's been years
so I can't remember now what I did then. Told it to ignore it I guess,
but I must not have been telling it to permanently ignore it or such. It
was no big deal as I only did the full scans once in a while and the
normal quick scans did not trigger it. It was not like the AV program
was interfering with the software in any way, at least not that I could
tell. It seemed to be working fine. If it had caused a "problem" I am
sure I would have gone searching for a way to tell Avast to leave it alone.

 

[Charles Tomaras]

Rarely updates, is ineffective and doesn't find viruses other programs
find.

That's bull. Mine updates nearly every day. Don't think I've ever seen a
definition date more than two days old. 4 computers running MSE since it's
inception...not a single virus. Then again I don't hide behind an Alias and
visit questionable sites so maybe I don't count.

 

[Cameo]

Clearly you are bullshitting us. MSSE does not slow machines to a
crawl....not even less than modern machines. Small footprint, easy on
resources.

I switched to MSSE from AVG 2011 about a week ago on my slower, old XP
system and except that darn MsMpEng.exe program that runs for about 5
minutes at each bootup, I am pretty happy with it. Searching the web for
that program, you find a lot of people complaining about its almost 100%
CPU usage. It makes bootups irritatingly slow on older PCs. Slower than
AVG. But after that initial paralysis the system runs fine.

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Avast is hardly a cumbersome chastity belt, more like a condom with
spermicide. And to continue your analogy, if MSE is a condom, it
seems to have the occasional hole. Good luck with that...

Speaking of occasional holes in the condom, I forgot to mention one of
the other reasons I no longer use MSE, not even as a "second opinion"
AV check - you can't install or update it in Safe Mode. What were
these guys thinking? (BTW, just had ANOTHER friends machine
compromised with one of those fake AV malware things, and you guessed
it, running MSE fully up to date before the infection, and didn't stop
it and couldn't remove it. Avast killed it no problem.)

 

[Charles Tomaras]

I switched to MSSE from AVG 2011 about a week ago on my slower, old XP
system and except that darn MsMpEng.exe program that runs for about 5
minutes at each bootup, I am pretty happy with it. Searching the web for
that program, you find a lot of people complaining about its almost 100%
CPU usage. It makes bootups irritatingly slow on older PCs. Slower than
AVG. But after that initial paralysis the system runs fine.

It's never seemed that long a wait to me but then again I rarely reboot my
computers these days.

Have you checked task manager to see what priority level MsMpEng.exe service
is set at on your machine? On my machine it's defaulted to normal. You could
always try setting the priority lower to see if that doesn't free up some
resources even if it takes longer to complete it's work.

 

[Charles Tomaras]

How do we know your name is Charles Tomaras? How can one hide and hide
from what?

Do a web search. That's me! Pretty sure this isn't you:
http://www.bing.com/search?q=alias&form=OSDSRC

 

[Ed Cryer]

Or so you say. Why should we believe you?

Pretty sure this isn't you:

I never claimed "Alias" is my name. I can assure you, though, that it
has nothing to do with the TV show. I was using "Alias" before that show
started.

Care you answer the question you ignored?

How about Bob Dylan in "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid"? That was about 1970.

Ed

 

[Brian Gregory [UK]]

I switched to MSSE from AVG 2011 about a week ago on my slower, old XP
system and except that darn MsMpEng.exe program that runs for about 5
minutes at each bootup, I am pretty happy with it. Searching the web for
that program, you find a lot of people complaining about its almost 100%
CPU usage. It makes bootups irritatingly slow on older PCs. Slower than
AVG. But after that initial paralysis the system runs fine.

I had that at one stage with MSE but it seems to have cleared up now.

 

[Charles Tomaras]

I never claimed "Alias" is my name. I can assure you, though, that it has
nothing to do with the TV show. I was using "Alias" before that show
started.

Care you answer the question you ignored?

You should believe me because I can produce my long form birth certificate.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

You should believe me because I can produce my long form birth certificate.

 

[Cameo]

I had that at one stage with MSE but it seems to have cleared up now.

How did you manage that?

 

[Flint]

I tossed AVG about a year ago in favor of MSE.

I tossed AVG too, in favor of Avast!

 

[Charles Tomaras]

And how do we know you didn't forge or steal it?

If you aren't proud enough of your real name to actually use it when you
communicate you are the one with an identity problem. I'm real enough and it
doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure that out.

 

[Charles Tomaras]

I tossed AVG too, in favor of Avast!

I tossed Alias in favor of MSE.

 

[Char Jackson]

I tossed AVG too, in favor of Avast!

I tossed AVG a few years ago in favor of Avira. Avast would have been
another fine choice. MSE wasn't yet available at the time, I think.

 

[Flint]

I tossed AVG a few years ago in favor of Avira. Avast would have been
another fine choice. MSE wasn't yet available at the time, I think.

Generally, I rank Avira(1), MSE(2), Avast(3) (in that order) in terms
of minimal resource/CPU utilization. Granted is the most resource
intensive of the three, although not as bad as AVG has become. AVG is
a true shame as it has lost its edge in resource/cpu utilization.
Between that, and the number of false positives in the past 2-3 major
releases, I finally had to give it up in favor of Avast! for a
complete solution.

Avast! is a bit resource intensive to, although about the same as AVG
was around 3-4 years ago. I see Avast! slowly creeping the same
direction as other malware boatware as well though. The good things
about Avast! is its reliable real-time detection as good as just about
anything out there, a much more intelligently implemented email
scanner that seems to configure much easier than AVG's local host
redirection scanner that always seems to need manual configuration and
just doesn't configure as easily for laymen.

Of course, in recent years, the argument for the need for email
scanners has been brought into question because of antivirus scanners
corrupting email (particularly those w/attachments). While this has
happened, it seems to be largely limited to Outlook/Outlook Express
email files(.pst/.dbx), and since Outhouse Express is fading away, dbx
corruption becomes a somewhat moot issue. .pst files OTOH, are still
largely in use, but even these seem to be lesser affected by newer
antivirus/malware email scanners.

Since I prefer to have email attachment scanning in addition to a
real-time memory scanner (at least on newer >dual core systems), I
went with Avast! On older single core systems, I prefer to either
disable various components of Avast! to ease up on its resource
footprint, or fore-go email attachment scanning, and use Avira.

 

[Charles Tomaras]

I don't take pride or identity that seriously. As the Bard said, "what's
in a name? A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet".


All we have is your word that your name is what you say it is. I know
you're real but that's a different subject.

Non scientific research here. Take a look at the flamiest most profane and
argumentative postings in any news group or forum and they almost ALL come
from people hiding behind an "alias" of some sort. Those folks are the ones
making the internet less civilized and they certainly bear great
responsibility for the gradual yet ongoing demise of Usenet. Now in the last
25 years, I've used a fake name or two, mostly back in my day's of local
user groups and 14.4 dialup...but as an adult, using a real name has made me
a more respectful person online. If you wouldn't say it to someone's
face...don't type it.

 

[Ed Cryer]

Non scientific research here. Take a look at the flamiest most profane and
argumentative postings in any news group or forum and they almost ALL come
from people hiding behind an "alias" of some sort. Those folks are the ones
making the internet less civilized and they certainly bear great
responsibility for the gradual yet ongoing demise of Usenet. Now in the last
25 years, I've used a fake name or two, mostly back in my day's of local
user groups and 14.4 dialup...but as an adult, using a real name has made me
a more respectful person online. If you wouldn't say it to someone's
face...don't type it.

I love your good moral approach; and I follow it myself as closely as I
can. It's the high road to a well rounded personality; an integrated
self rather than a divided one.
But we're in a minority, I think, here on waining Usenet.

One good thing is that not many young people get into Usenet these days.
They get into other social networking systems. So we don't get the
teenage, kick-ass newbies coming in; we just have to deal with the aging
former antisocial remnants.

Ed