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With AVG 8 with the LinkScanner turned on:
When you do a google search each site that the search returns is scanned by AVG (See the little green ticks appear by the sites in the search)
That's what it's doing.
It's ruining webmaster stats, using bandwidth (yours & the sites that it scans), it can be used easily to perform a DoS and you will have a history (with your ISP) of visiting sites that you haven't actually visited.
I think that about sums it up.
Regards,
Steve
OK, Cider, this is fairly important to you guys who are faced with quite low bandwidth caps.
AVG is trying to warn you if you are about to visit a dodgy site when you use a search engine. To do this it uses your system to visit all the sites on a page that your search engine displays.
So, for example, if you use Google and pull up 10 sites per page and look at 5 pages, you will visit 50 sites, most of which you are probably not interested in. This will use your bandwidth and your IP address. Responding to the visit uses the websites' bandwidth and increments their visit counter.
I am no expert on this, but I believe that visits from search engine spiderbots can be filtered out. The problem with the AVG tool is it has to look like a genuine visitor to be effective. If it can be filtered out of the site statistics it can be detected by malware using the same technology, so it will be ineffective.
I would have thought that the hitcounter problem could be solved by applying a time limit before the visit is counted, but that does not resolve the bandwidth issue.
Hmm, Why doesnt it just check the link you click on?
I am not sure, but would guess that by then it would be too late?
AVG bought the company that developed the software some months ago, so they took it onboard "as is"
The alternative technology is the whitelist/blacklist, which has the advantage of being "passive" in terms of the website's resources, but has the disadvantage of always being out of date.............. no protection against zero day compromised sites.
Wow.. I thought that the alerts were a good thing until I read this, and a few other things come to mind.
1. With ISP's starting to fiddle with bandwidth capping and tiering, just how much of my bandwidth is being used with these scans of links on Google that I'm not even visiting?
2. I don't want my IP showing up in a log of a web site I never visited. Could the Government use that against me?
3. If my IP shows up in the log of a bad guy, will I then become the target of a scan? ... I'm now a legitimate IP, even though I was never there.
4. WTF!
scenario: I Google .... System of a Down, dig down 20 'or what ever random number pages' in the Google search page, one of the links is a pirate page and they get sued and have to fork over web logs. My ip is logged and now I'm a pirate? Insane..
Apparently you can disable this from the tools/addons menu in IE6 without impacting on AVG to accurately report error conditions.
Regards,
Steve
The best feature AVG has provided in all its products is uninstall. :eek:
I was using Panda Internet Security but now I have moved to Kaperspy, running a trial at the moment. Looking good.
Hey SD................ has ya tested it though?:DQuote:
The best feature AVG has provided in all its products is uninstall.
Actually, I have noticed quite a few "updates" or "improvements" ;)
I guess it was an RC1, apart from the website issue?