AVG sucks

[John Q. Public]

PEBKAC or as I like to call it :Operator Malfunction

 

[Joseph Morlan]

Which e-mail client are you using the Personal Email Scanner with?

I use it with both Agent and Outlook.

I assume
you do not mean you are using the OE Plug-in in AVG.

Actually it's best to keep that box checked even if you're not using OE.
Some functions of Personal Email Scanner don't seem to work without it.

As I recall the
Personal Email Scanner is another program and is available on the Grisoft
site. Yes?

Right. However, it's beta, has some bugs, can be difficult to configure,
comes with almost incomprehensible documentation, and is unsupported in the
free version.

Does it work with Outlook Express?

It can be configured to work with any email client. It is an email proxy.
Basically you point it to your pop/smtp server and then point your email
client to localhost on a different port which is user configurable in AVG
Personal Email Scanner.

It's simple enough, but if you already have another email proxy (I use
Popfile for spam filtering), the setup becomes more complex. However once
correctly configured, it's quite smooth and transparent.

 

[John Blaustein]

I'm using Spam Inspector with Outlook Express. Spam Inspector is an e-mail
proxy, so I point OE to 127.0.0.1. AVG doesn't seem to be catching viruses
even when all the boxes are checked, and I suspect that's because I have
Spam Inspector in the mix. I get two copies of the PayPal virus almost
every day. It has an .scr attachment. AVG doesn't find it when I'm
receiving e-mails, even with all the boxes checked. I have not tried it
with the Plug-in turned on because my toolbar goes away when the Plug-in is
on.

I'm content with how AVG is working now (with e-mail options off), so I may
just leave it alone. As I mentioned, I'm very aware of all e-mail
containing attachments and handle them carefully.

Thanks for your comments.

John

 

[kurt wismer]

PEBKAC or as I like to call it :Operator Malfunction

you should definitely call it a pebkac problem... then the operator in
question can nod like he knows what you're talking about and say "maybe"...

 

[Shane]

I just downloaded AVG Free edition and the following happened:

I started the installation file and it started to run another setup.exe file
I happened to have in the
same directory as their installation file! After removing that file it tried
to run an old 16-bit program
and failed with that to... Finally it told me that i do not have sufficient
rights to install on my computer.
I, of course, have administration rights! I sent a mail to their support,
that automatically replied that
no support is offered for the free edition. Now I am really annoyed! Who
needs viruses when we
have anti-virus programs? I have been running Norton antivirus before and it
has been nothing but
problems. I made the mistake to pushase it on the net, and once every second
month it popped
a dialog thankning me for using the trial version!?! Anyone know any
anti-virus program that don't
just get you pissed off or keeps anoying you?

Much - if not all - of that sounds like consequences of running a registry
cleaner such as Norton WinDoctor (and allowing it to Repair All).


Shane

 

[Joseph Morlan]

I'm using Spam Inspector with Outlook Express. Spam Inspector is an e-mail
proxy, so I point OE to 127.0.0.1. AVG doesn't seem to be catching viruses
even when all the boxes are checked, and I suspect that's because I have
Spam Inspector in the mix. I get two copies of the PayPal virus almost
every day. It has an .scr attachment. AVG doesn't find it when I'm
receiving e-mails, even with all the boxes checked. I have not tried it
with the Plug-in turned on because my toolbar goes away when the Plug-in is
on.

Well if you decide to run the AVG Personal Email Scanner, then change your
pop3 login in OE to something like:

localhost:5110ldloginname/old.pop.server

....where 5100 is the new pop port. At least that's what I do with Popfile.

I'm content with how AVG is working now (with e-mail options off), so I may
just leave it alone. As I mentioned, I'm very aware of all e-mail
containing attachments and handle them carefully.

The more I look into it, the more I think that email scanning is just a
marketing ploy that doesn't really offer any additional safety. If you
have a decent realtime scanner it should stop viruses as soon as they are
saved to disk.

Have you tried saving one of those Paypal *.scr files to disk to make sure
AVG catches it? I'll bet it does.

The email scanning adds another layer of protection by deleting the virus
from the message as soon as it's received. But what real threat is it
protecting your from when the realtime scanner catches it instantly as soon
as you try to save it or execute it?

 

[John Blaustein]

Joseph,

No, I haven't tried saving one of the *.scr files to disk, but I will try it
the next time I get one, probably tomorrow.

Thanks for the explanation of how to use AVG PES with Spam Inspector. For
now, I'm just going to rely on real-time scanning of disk activity and watch
e-mail attachments very closely.

I'll report back...

John

 

[John Blaustein]

Joseph,

Today, I enabled AVG's e-mail scanning and when the PayPal viruses arrived,
AVG found them the moment I clicked on the e-mails. It automatically fixed
them. What I'll try next time is to disable the e-mail scanning and try
saving the PayPal .scr attachment to disk. I'm confident AVG will find the
virus then, but I want to be sure.

Again, I'll report back.

John

 

[John Blaustein]

Follow-up...

When I save the PayPal .scr virus to my HD, AVG does not find it until I
navigate to the folder where I saved the file and click on it. I use a file
manager called PowerDesk Pro, not Windows Explorer. In PowerDesk, the
moment I click on the folder where I saved the .scr file, AVG flashes me a
warning to run AVG. I run it and it deletes the virus.

All of this requires much more attention than Norton AV did, but the bottom
line is the same -- the virus is caught before doing any damage. Since I am
extremely careful in how I handle all attachments, I feel confident with
using AVG.

John