TSGL: AVG Free AV vs. Avast AV ???
H Davis
hdavis1 at gmail.com
Sat Nov 10 16:12:32 EST 2007
Lee,
I just saw this news item today. Not encouraging.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20071110/tc_pcworld/139506
H Davis
Lee Bunyard wrote:
> Yeah, I would definitely like to know more about the risk of loading
> webpages without scanning the pages with an AV product. The Avast AV
> website indicates there is considerable risk so I turned back on the Web
> Shield scanning module of the Avast Free AV product I downloaded, but it
> sure does slow down the loading of webpages quite a bit. It scans each
> and every graphic module that each website page is coded for. I hope
> somebody can clarify this for us. I'd also like to know if the AVG Free
> product also scans webpages as they load--there are no settings for AVG
> which indicate this, the Grisoft.Com website doesn't mention scanning of
> webpages--I don't think that it does because the AVG Free AV product
> does not slow down the loading of webpages at all. Frankly, if I could
> get the AVG Free AV product to scan the Thunderbird email on my new
> desktop that's running the Vista OS, I'd stay with AVG. If AVG Free AV
> product does NOT scan websites as they load, then I would have to say
> that the risk of downloading a virus or some other malware thru
> downloading of webpages must be VERY tiny, because I've used AVG Free on
> my desktops and laptop for the past 6-7 years, as have my son and
> daughter on their desktops, and none of us have ever had any kind of
> virus or trojan infestation. And my son and daughter go out to lotsa
> websites, like Facebook, MySpace, etc., which are always mentioned as
> being high risk for infections.
>
> Anyway, I hope someone can shed more light on this subject.
> Lee in the Mountains of Northern California
>
> H Davis wrote:
>
>> Lee Bunyard wrote:
>>
>>
>>> <snip>
>>> How important is it to have an AV product
>>> running that scans incoming webpages as they load in your browser??
>>>
>>>
>> This area is murky to me too. There are malicious web sites out there.
>> There are even cases of popular, legitimate web sites (Facebook and even
>> Google, I think) being compromised for a while. These will download
>> malicious software onto your computer by exploiting an unpatched
>> deficiency in Windows. Usually you don't have to take any action other
>> than to display the malicious page on your screen. The infection is
>> completely undetectable to you if your anti-whatever program doesn't
>> catch it.
>>
>> It's not clear to me if AV programs detect this type of infection or if
>> Anti-Malware software does it. (Or maybe nothing detects it.)
>>
>> Can anyone else illuminate this area better?
>>
>> H Davis
>>
>>
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>> Computerfee wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Hi there Lee,
>>>>
>>>> can't help you with the plug-in for AVG but here are just some thoughts
>>>> about not needing e-mail virus scans at all - maybe this article is
>>>> interesting for you as well -
>>>> http://www.thundercloud.net/infoave/answers/2007/no-email-scan-with-av.htm
>>>> I don't rely much on the thundercloud answers, but think some of their
>>>> articles are quite interesting as they show a different point of view and
>>>> obviously they are objective as they don't want to sell anything but give
>>>> away their stationery for free (they also have a really informative article
>>>> about IncrediMail by the way which I am passing around quite often when
>>>> people start strange problems with their computers -
>>>> http://thundercloud.net/infoave/answers/incredimail.htm)
>>>>
>>>> have a nice day
>>>> Heidi from Berlin, Germany
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: "Lee Bunyard" <leebunyard at comcast.net>
>>>> To: "Tech Support Guy Mailing List" <list at tsgserver.com>
>>>> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 12:06 AM
>>>> Subject: TSGL: AVG Free AV vs. Avast AV ???
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I've been using the AVG Free anti-virus program for a number of years
>>>>> now on a number of different pc's and have been very happy with it.
>>>>> Have never had a virus infection on any of the pc's. Lately I've been
>>>>> running the AVG Free AV product on a desktop and laptop. I use the
>>>>> Mozilla Thunderbird email client and on both my desktop and laptop, the
>>>>> AVG 7.5 Free program provides a "Personal Email Scanner" module that
>>>>> scans the incoming and outgoing Thunderbird email. It also scans email
>>>>> for the IncrediMail email client which my wife uses. When scanning, AVP
>>>>> pops up a little box pops indicating that it is scanning email. My
>>>>> desktop went south several weeks ago and I purchased a new HP desktop
>>>>> that runs Vista Premium Home edition OS. Once I managed to get rid of
>>>>> the annoying Norton AV product popups that the new MS computers come
>>>>> preloaded with, I decided to download and use AVG Free AV on the new
>>>>> desktop. After going thru the frustration of trying to find the free
>>>>> version of AVG on the www.grisoft.com website (they do everything they
>>>>> can to direct you into one of their paid products), I finally found the
>>>>> download site for the AVG Free version and downloaded the v7.5 product.
>>>>> It installed OK and works fine EXCEPT that, while the email scanner
>>>>> shows that it is functioning, it is definitely NOT scanning the
>>>>> Thunderbird email. When I check the AVG settings and properties for the
>>>>> email scanner, it shows that the plugin it is using is for MS Outlook
>>>>> Extension. In other words, there is no plugin showing for Personal
>>>>> Email Scanner, which apparently is needed to scan email other than MS
>>>>> Outlook. The HELP files for AVG indicate that I need to checkmark the
>>>>> Personal Email Scanner in order to scan email other than Outlook but
>>>>> there is no Personal Email Scanner there. I've downloaded and installed
>>>>> the AVG Free v7.5 product three times now trying to figure out what's
>>>>> wrong but I get the same thing each time. I just went and checked the
>>>>> AVG Free product on my laptop and it is running the same v7.5 of AVG and
>>>>> it does show that the Personal Email Scanner is in place and working.
>>>>> The laptop is running XP Home OS.
>>>>> Anyone running AVG Free experience anything similar to this problem, or
>>>>> have any thoughts on why I can't get the Personal Email Scanner plugin
>>>>> to setup during installation???
>>>>>
>>>>> Second issue. Last nite, in frustration with the AVG Free installation,
>>>>> I went out and downloaded the Avast Free AV product. It setup and
>>>>> installed OK and is running and apparently working OK, including
>>>>> scanning incoming and outgoing Thunderbird email but it appears to have
>>>>> DRAMATICALLY slowed down my new desktop pc. Particularly on bringing up
>>>>> graphics in webpages using the Firefox browser (my preferred browser).
>>>>> Is this slowdown normal when running the Avast AV product?? If so, I
>>>>> probably won't continue to use it. There are 7 scanning modules with
>>>>> Avast AV--Internet Mail, Network Shield, P2P Shield, Standard Shield,
>>>>> Web Shield, Instant Messaging and Outlook/Exchange. I turned off the
>>>>> modules for Instant Messaging and Outlook/Exchange since we don't need
>>>>> those functions but the pc performance with Avast is still much slower
>>>>> than I ever experienced with AVG Free. I'm not sure whether I can
>>>>> safely turn off any of the other modules since I'm not really sure what
>>>>> their function is. Any thoughts from anyone who is using the Avast Free
>>>>> AV product??
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for any thoughts on these problems.
>>>>> Lee in the Mountains of Northern California
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Tech Support Guy Mailing List
>>>>> http://www.tsgserver.com/list/
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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--
H Davis hdavis1 at gmail.com
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