anti-virus – Blogvaria

AVG’s Linkscanner gone crazy

Wennichen — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:31:43 +0000

The Linkscanner feature in Grisoft’s free anti virus solution, AVG 8, has been way too active for some. Linkscanner is meant to assist users to see whether their results in Google (among others) leads to safe or unsafe websites.

In order to do so the software scans the site before the user actually visits it. It’s done by a component called Search-Shield.

Until recently this feature was only available in the full (paid) version, but after being included in the free version as well several websites experienced a massive increase in traffic.

Smaller websites would be lead to believe that it was a DOS attack (Denial Of Service) as the traffic from AVG’s Search-Shield would exceed normal traffic. In some cases the servers were reported to go down. An in-depth analysis is available at AVG Linkscanner Watch.

The server logs clearly shows the massive increase in traffic is caused by Grisoft. Multiple complaints has been forwarded and a fix is now being “shipped” in order to solve the problem.

With 70 million potential users I’m glad I’m running this site off a powerful server with no bandwidth restrictions to worry about. What about you, have you been noticing any changes in traffic recently?

AVG 8 Free Edition is out

Thomas — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:55:56 +0000

Just a few days ago I wrote about the latest anti-virus release from AVG, AVG Internet Security v.8. Yesterday they’ve released a similar update for their FREE version. This really is great news for anyone running on a low budget, or anyone else for that matter.

Version 8 has already been acknowledged as a state-of-the-art protection solution, and I bet the free edition is equally good even though it may lack a few features when compared to the paid version.

Besides the obvious (killing threats) the GUI looks much better;

Great first impression! Installation went smoothly and so far I’ve nothing negative to say about it. Let me know what you think about it if you decide to give it a try. You can grab the source from AVG directly (much faster than download.com).

Introducing AVG version 8

Thomas — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 14:26:30 +0000

AVG products are running on over 70 million computers worldwide, mainly because of the free AND trustworthy 7.5 edition I believe. However, AVG has always delivered fast, effective security without the performance-sapping overheads of other security suites (Norton), and AVG Internet Security 8.0 continues that tradition.

Now available as a special time limited offer for up to 3 home computers with a 2 years Subscription for less than EUR 96.59 (153 USD)!

This means you can get both your office and home computer fully secured and still be able to provide me with a valid license (hint; finders fee) for less than EUR 50 a year!

Virus Bulletin review, March 2008 [ Source, requires registration ]

The combination of a wide range of features â€“ including some nice innovations â€“ with much improved design and usability, stability, unexceptionable system impact and highly impressive detection, seems like a winning one, and I expect to see AVG continuing to go from strength to strength with this release.