AVG Update Breaks iTunes

nate_in_ME writes "After getting a positive from the AVG virus detector while playing music on iTunes just a few minutes ago, I did a bit of research. It appears that AVG has recently pushed an update to the virus definitions that flags every iPod/iTunes related file as being infected with the 'Small.BOG' trojan. Interestingly enough, AVG does not have any information on this particular virus in their virus encyclopedia. Discussion on the Apple forum is up to 4 pages and climbing. One user there had an interesting thought: 'Maybe Palm has some shares in AVG...MUAHAAAA!!' (on page 3)."

Comments

Had This Problem Myself

[Jucius Maximus]

It does not appear to flag "every" file related to iTunes, it is just the iTunesMiniPlayer.dll.

The workaround is to disable the real-time scanner.

However their latest update had fixed it, and my real-time scanner is running again without problem.

Re:Had This Problem Myself

[kklein]

Or switch to a better AV product.

I loved AVG for a long time, but since 8, it has been a resource hog and has added a bunch of crap I don't want and keeps asking me if I'd like to pay and keeps throwing up false positives.

I just got rid of it the other day.

Re:Had This Problem Myself

[adolf]

I like Avast quite a bit. It's generally fast, problem-free, and stays the hell out of the way.

Or at least, it stays out of the way once you do a few things to it:

Tell it to turn off all sounds and notifications of normalcy. And to automatically accept all new program and definition updates. And to never to bother to ask to reboot the computer (it's a Windows desktop -- it'll be rebooted soon enough for othe reasons, anyway).

After that, it just sits quietly on the taskbar unless things go awry somehow.

This is a problem with AV in general.

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at a AV vendor (not one of the big ones), and false positives are a big problem. Essentially there are two issues. First, how severe is the threat? You might skimp on your validation process in order to get something out sooner. Second (and much harder to resolve), there is effectively an infinite amount of software out there; on top of that, there may also be many different versions (iTunes 6, 7, 8, point releases, etc). You try to do the best you can, but shit happens because you can only test against so much software.

Re:Haha, good

[_merlin]

I have too much music for simple drag and drop to be useful. I like iTunes' smart playlists, which effectively give me a query language into my music library. If you do just want to drag and drop, tell iTunes that you want to manage the music on your iPod manually. You'll still have to use iTunes, but you'll be able to drag stuff on and off the device.

why is AVG still a major player?

[13th seer]

AVG turned to fucking donkey shit after 7.5. it blows my mind people still use it. the company treats their end users like idiots, their software behaves like the malware it claims to rid your system of, and eats up a shitton of resources to boot

yet it still seems to be one of the most popular free scanners, if not the most. I don't get it

it's hard to find a decent free antivirus that doesn't nag or suck these days. iirc Avira had nag screens, and a ridiculous amount of false positives. the least crap one I've used seems to be avast!. it seems to detect a decent amount of viruses, keeps out of the way, and and doesn't eat up a lot of resources

Re:Haha, good

[dhovis]

Add a folder to your library, wait while itunes chugs and makes a COPY of each file before syncing.

In iTunes Preferences: Go to "Advanced". Uncheck "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library". iTunes will leave your files where they are and just index them.

Personally I like the way iTunes organizes my music and keeps the actual files out of my way, but YMMV.

Re:Update

[saxoholic]

Yeah, AVG had a false positive on friday, several users submitted false positive reports, and the updated virus definitions yesterday fixed the problem. Nothing to see here, move along.