Page 4 of 5 FirstFirst ... 2345 LastLast
Results 31 to 40 of 46

Thread: AVG 8 OMG!

  1. #31
    rebmeM roineS enilnOitnA steve.milner's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Posts
    1,021
    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
    IT, e-commerce, Retail, Programme & Project Management, EPoS, Supply Chain and Logistic Services. Yorkshire. http://www.bigi.uk.com

  2. #32
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    United Kingdom: Bridlington
    Posts
    17,188
    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.

  3. #33
    Only african to own a PC! Cider's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Location
    Israel
    Posts
    1,683
    Hmm, Why doesnt it just check the link you click on?
    The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.
    Albert Einstein

  4. #34
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    United Kingdom: Bridlington
    Posts
    17,188
    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.

  5. #35
    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!
    You can\'t squeeze cheese from a goat before it\'s hatched.............

  6. #36
    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..
    You can\'t squeeze cheese from a goat before it\'s hatched.............

  7. #37
    rebmeM roineS enilnOitnA steve.milner's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Posts
    1,021
    Apparently you can disable this from the tools/addons menu in IE6 without impacting on AVG to accurately report error conditions.

    Regards,

    Steve
    IT, e-commerce, Retail, Programme & Project Management, EPoS, Supply Chain and Logistic Services. Yorkshire. http://www.bigi.uk.com

  8. #38
    Some Assembly Required ShagDevil's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    SC
    Posts
    718
    The best feature AVG has provided in all its products is uninstall.
    The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his - George Patton

  9. #39
    Only african to own a PC! Cider's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Location
    Israel
    Posts
    1,683
    I was using Panda Internet Security but now I have moved to Kaperspy, running a trial at the moment. Looking good.
    The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.
    Albert Einstein

  10. #40
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    United Kingdom: Bridlington
    Posts
    17,188
    The best feature AVG has provided in all its products is uninstall.
    Hey SD................ has ya tested it though?

    Actually, I have noticed quite a few "updates" or "improvements"

    I guess it was an RC1, apart from the website issue?

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •