AVG update nails down stability bugs
Engine upgrade follows LinkScanner traffic spew fix
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AVG has published an engine upgrade to its popular anti-virus scanning software that addresses a raft of stability bugs.
The update, published Tuesday, addresses a bug that means the scanner is liable to crash when scanning malformed UPX compressed executable files. More significantly version 8.0.156 of the software fixes glitches introduced around the same time AVG modified the LinkScanner Search-Shield component of its software on 9 July so that it didn't scan every page returned by a search query.
LinkScanner pre-scanned each result shown in a link with a user agent disguised so that it appeared to come from a IE6 user. These scan results were difficult to distinguish from regular traffic because they came from whatever IP address an AVG 8 user happened to have. This traffic-spewing behaviour created overinflated site visitor statistics for sites that appeared high in search engine results pages. It also ratcheted up bandwidth costs for websites.
In response to these criticisms, AVG said on 9 July that its LinkScanner software would only scan links clicked on by users (Active Surf-Shield).
This change and other recent tweaks introduced update crash bugs and around 30 other flaws addressed by the AVG 8.0.156 program update. The software fixes the anti-virus engine that powers AVG rather than simply adding new malware definitions. More detail in AVG's advisory here. ®
COMMENTS
AVG's got too flabby
I stayed with it for a long time. But when I realised that is uses 50-200 meg once loaded, and was covered in features I didn't use I figured it was time to change. I also started to get annoyed with not being able to turn of features such as auto update, without the icon going to alert.
I tried most of the ones I've seen mentioned around but had feature/performance/stability issues with most of them. (Minor, but still not perfect)
Then on a whim I treid PC Tools Antivirus. Pretty basic, but its got real time protection, heuristics, email scanning and all the other basic musts. From a cold start is sits in memory at about 5 meg, going up to 10 after a while (but no higher even after a couple of days)
I noticed it most on my rubbish laptop, which went from solw and dodgy, to useable instantly. I've changed about 7 or 8 PC's over to it now, and they all seem a little happier.
AVG is still good, linkscanner is fixed
Hi, free AVG is readily available on www.downloads.com search for AVG and get the free version. Yes, the lastest AVG 8.0 caused ISP some problems, but they fixed it promptly. I find the active surf shield a blessing, there are alot of sites out there today with malware links on them. So stop complaining about AVG, if you don't like it go get another free one. AVG is not bloatware, its freeware.
Did they fix the bloat?
nope... still too fat for my system. AVG was good before they bloated up. Avast takes care of viruses and ad/spyware and works as well as AVG 7.5 did. so until AVG trims the fat... Avast me hardies! I be usin Avast on me PC.
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