AVG Backs Down From Flooding the Internet

Simon Wright writes "As a website that is featured heavily in many Google Australia search results, Whirlpool (Australia's largest technology forum) has been particularly affected by AVG's LinkScanner. We've seen a traffic increase as much as 12 hits per second from these bots. So we've actively and loudly campaigned against this move by AVG, encouraging all users of AVG 8.0 to uninstall the product. The discussion starts here. And AVG's backing down is posted here." From that URL:"'As promised, I am letting you know that the latest update for AVG Free edition has addressed and rectified the issue that [Whirlpool] have brought to our attention. This update has now been released to users and has also been built into the latest installation package for AVG Free.' — Peter Cameron, Managing Director, AVG Australia."

Comments

LinkScanner was unnecessary in the first place

[DigitAl56K]

I fail to see what Grisoft ever thought LinkScanner would acheive above the scanners that are becoming common in competing products that simply intercept http and pop3 traffic as it comes over the network. To me it seemed unnecessary to actually fetch every single search result. It also would obviously interfere with web analytics, and is potentially a security risk to people using AVG, not in terms of desktop security, but in terms of your real-life personal security. For example, I recall a recent article where the FBI had arrested people merely for clicking links to a porn site they had set up. Are you really safe from such operations and the general tendency of Government agencies to monitor activity these days when your computer is in effect programmed to click links for you?

I don't see information at the links in the summary of what changes were actually made to AVG now. Does anyone have details?

Re:LinkScanner was unnecessary in the first place

[PhrostyMcByte]

The only reason I could think of would be to reduce latency - scanning a page on demand probably incurs some noticable cost and if you can start a scan before the user clicks the link, you lower the perceived time to scan. But it definitely wasn't very friendly to servers.

Re:So is AVG still a good AV prog?

[FilterMapReduce]

I second your question. I used AVG Free for a long time and uninstalled it very quickly when I heard the news. But I'm having choosing a replacement cost-free anti-virus program for Windows. Here's are the factors I've been considering...

AVG Free Pro: seems pretty effective and runs inobtrusively (at least locally). Con: has DDoS'd websites in the past and perhaps still shouldn't be trusted.

Avira Pro: no track record of DDoS'ing websites. Con: obnoxious pop-ups "reminding" me about the premium version; apparently got some poor reviews for infection treatment.

Avast Pro: no track record of DDoS'ing websites. Con: requires manual re-registration.

I'm using Avira now but I'm considering switching again because of the pop-ups. Any advice? (And yes, I already run Linux but still need Windows for some things, and no, I'm not interested in paying for anti-virus software, since 99% of virus protection is common sense.)

Whirlpool and WebCentral

[Anonymous Coward]

Thing about Whirlpool is that it's a custom CF package developed by the webmaster and it's a thing of beauty. The ugly thing about is that it's hosted on WebCentral.

WebCentral... Whirlpool doesn't have to pay any money to WebCentral, they host it for free. The funky thing is that almost nobody on Whirlpool ever recommends WebCentral for webhosting. They recommend all sorts of other companies in Australia, except probably the most vocal one, WebCentral.

The reason? I've got customers that have PHP and ASP websites with WebCentral and pay $40 a month for a massive 200 MB of storage and 1 GB of transfers. Which is nothing these days. And for that amount of money, you'd think that the sites would at least be quick... think again. They are slow because WebCentral really don't know what they are doing. They've only got IIS and the first access to a website always takes ages for the DLL of the virtual site to start up and do its stuff. All the subsequent accesses are pretty quick. 12 accesses per second for the biggest techie forum in Australia shouldn't be all that much extra and certainly shouldn't bring the server to its knees. Search on Whirlpool hasn't been working most of the time because WebCentral's servers just won't take it. Full-text search will never exist, not as long as it's on WebCentral anyways.

WebCentral got bought out, not too long ago, by MelbourneIT, a registrar for .au domains, so you'd think that WebCentral had a clue when it came to DNS. They don't. I asked them to set up a new subdomain with a different IP address? What do they do? The redirect mail.something.com.au to point to the new IP address, with the hilarious consequence of a dozen people not being able to get any emails for a few days.

And then there's the case of the $65 for 2 year domain registration. You'd think that would include DNS hosting, as asiaregistry.com do for $30 for 2 years. MelbourneIT offers a 1-page website for $140 for 2 years. Well, think again. The $65 only cover domain reservation. It means that you register a domain, pay them money, but that's it. They sell you a product that's more than twice as expensive than with a reasonable competitor, but you can't actually do anything with it. No, what you want is 'Domain Parking', there's no way to get DNS hosting apart from that. $240 for 2 years. We've had domain names with AsiaRegistry for years now, and they've been absolutely reliable, more so than WebCentral will ever be.

I called them about that, they say that the advantage is them being a local business. That's the entire argument. A local business with shit webhosting and crap value. Don't ever do business with WebCentral.

There's no way I'd ever post this on Whirlpool, because it'd get removed by WebCentral, one way or another, immediately. And there's no way you'll see Simon Wright responding to me, it's like everything is open for discussion on Whirlpool as long as it's on topic, except WebCentral. They do provide hosting for free and can make Simon's life a bit uncomfortable at least if WebCentral is all of a sudden open for discussion.

Re:Good Stuff!

[rbochan]

Maybe you should keep looking.

I don't disagree. Version 8 of their product is the most bloated thing I've seen in ages. Almost moreso than the consumer Norton/McAffee stuff. And to top it off, it's so naggy it's ridiculous.

Another reason

[mangu]

every page in the forum is headed by an orange banner, that not only references the AVG problem and suggests users uninstall the software, but also recommends and has direct links to "superior alternatives" such as Avast and Avira.

That's a good one, but there's also this suggestion from TFA:

one web master advocates redirecting AVG scans back to AVG's site. "Many webmasters simply tell LinkScanner to scan AVG's site instead, so their site gets marked as malware free every time - while AVG gets handed the extra bandwidth cost," says the webmaster of TheSilhouettes.org.

Re:So is AVG still a good AV prog?

[Hemogoblin]

3. Run anything you don't 100% trust in a VM without network access

Which is easier to set-up for an average user: the above, or installing an antivirus? I consider myself fairly computer savy, but I have absolutely no clue how to set up a VM.