Newsletter Archives

• Avast goes rogue

  Posted on June 17, 2016 at 10:18 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  From reader c:

  Avast has just taken a page out of Microsoft’s bullying manual.

  I use Avast Free Antivirus. Several months ago, after resisting nag messages to “upgrade” to the new free version whose extra “features” I did not care for, I finally gave in.

  The new version messed with my Outlook 2003 (yes, that’s two thousand and three ; it suits me perfectly). It added a new “anti-spam” toolbar in all messages, which takes unwanted screen space and is completely unneeded, since I practically never receive spam.

  There was no warning, no way to opt-out before or after installation, and no way within Outlook 2003 or Windows 7 to disable the unwanted add-in. None that I found, anyway.

  So I went nuclear, and restored my whole system drive from a backup image. The “upgrade” vanished and I was back where I wanted to.

  Yesterday, Avast fired up a new, different nag screen, urging me to “upgrade” again (for my own good). Except… the only option “offered” was a Continue button… and no way to Cancel or Decline.

  So I right-clicked in the Windows taskbar to Close Window. Which it did.

  Today, when I launched Ooutlook, the dreaded anti-spam add-in appeared again.

  So, Avast stealthily “upgraded” me against my will, using exactly the same method Microsoft introduced with its wicked Windows 10 “upgrade” nag screen, where no Cancel option is offered and where clicking X means Accept.

  Folks, when a major player goes rogue, expect other, lesser vendors to grab the opportunity and go with the flow… Bad habits spread more readily than good ones. It seems we are less and less in control of our computers, and “empowerment” is a word of the past.

  UPDATE: I don’t know why, but attempts to post comments on this article are getting locked out. At least, I can’t get anything to post. Sometimes WordPress works in mysterious ways. Reader BC sent this:

  I’ve been using Panda Free Antivirus for over a year without problems. It seems light on resources, and it’s truly a “set-and-forget” experience when properly configured. The key is to enable “Gaming/multimedia mode,” and–most importantly–turn off “Panda news.” The software will be silent, without any type of nag screen.

  Panda does request an e-mail address, but I’ve never provided one.

  I don’t have another anti-virus scanner, but Malwarebytes and Spybot seem to indicate my system is clean.

  Other Avast

• Antivirus and Windows 8

  Posted on November 7, 2012 at 22:37 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  You probably guessed that I strongly recommend against installing  any third party antivirus software  in Windows 8. The built-in Win8 package works great,and it’ll never beg you for money.

  That said, I just received a sobering  overview of  known AV problems from EP:

  Now that Windows 8 is out to the masses, there are some antivirus – internet security suites that are not yet compatible with Windows 8.

   

  The folks of Avira have acknowledged that their antivirus software is incompatible with Win8 and may cause blue screen crashes on Win8 if Avira is installed on there:

  http://forum.avira.com/wbb/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=149515

   

  Even a recent version of Avast antivirus software can also cause BSODs on Win8 as noted in these Avast forum threads:

  http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=108731.0

  http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=107811.15

  http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=107886.0

  [a recent patch for Avast has been released to resolve the blue screen crashes on Win8] But the next release of Avast sometime in early 2013 will be fully Win8 compatible.

   

  and lastly the Lavasoft Ad-aware 10.x security software has some incompatibility issues on Windows 8 mentioned in this Lavasoft forum thread:

  http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?/topic/32920-windows-8-issues-with-enable-shop-and-bank-safely-online/

  I also read in the forum there that the upcoming Ad-aware version 10.4 will add full Windows 8 support, which will be due out in late November 2012.

   

  In the meantime, Windows 8 users should avoid using Avast, Avira or Lavasoft and switch to other internet security programs that are currently compatible with Windows 8.

  EP just sent me an update:

  a follow up on Avast.  It was already compatible with Windows 8 since version 7.0.1473, as noted on the Softpedia page on Avast’s history / changelog:

  http://www.softpedia.com/progChangelog/Avast-Home-Edition-Changelog-6474.html

  I was not fully aware of this.

   

  Build 1473 of Avast 7.0 was released October 24 and build 1474 was released Nov. 1 to fix certain crashes on Windows 8.  A patch for Avast 7.0.1474 is made available here:

  http://public.avast.com/~rypacek/patches/

  this one should resolve more blue screen crashes with Avast 7 but this patch specifically requires version 7.0.1474 and won’t install on build 1473 or less.

   

  So Win8 users who have Avast 7.0 installed should upgrade to version 7.0.1474 and apply the aswnet.sys patch to fix most (if not all) of the serious crashes.

   

  You’ve probably guessed that I no longer use Avast – I’m Microsoft Security Essentials all the way in Win7, and use nothing besides the default (“Windows Defender”) in Win8.

  Windows Patches/Security Ad-aware, Avast, Avira, Windows 8 antivirus

• Avast! Ahoy me false positive hardies

  Posted on December 4, 2009 at 05:39 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Avast is having a bad day. Seems its recent virus definition update started triggering all sort of false positives – incorrectly identifying good programs as malware. SANS Internet Storm Center puts it this way:

  We have received a number of reports of Avast Antivirus false positives (Thanks Ken, Don,  Luca & others).   With a recent update the Avast antivirus product have started identifying legitimate products as containing Win32-Dell-MZG.  The Avast forum is awash with some of the products that have been tagged, many of which are known to be good and have been functioning quite normally.

  The recommendation at the moment is to not reply delete or quarantine files as this may fry the product they belong to (a few readers are currently reinstalling applications).  As far as we know the files are consistently identified as Win32-Dell-MZG so if others pop up there is a fair chance that these are legit.

  UPDATE: A new update was released fixing the issue.  091203-1.  If you haven’t used your computer between 12:00am UTC and 5.50 am UTC, then you will receive the new update and you should be fine.  For those that were affected I recommend you keep an eye on the Avast blog http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=51647 as they are working on some how to’s to help fix any issues.

  Office Patches/Security Avast
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