I hate antivirus software with a passion. I've wasted too many weeks of my life hacking around bugs that antivirus programs introduced into my customers' systems.<p>A couple I've dealt with in the last six months:<p>McAfee Antivirus causes applications built with Unity 4 to fail when they call WWW.LoadFromCacheOrDownload() on a large asset bundle. This API call downloads a temp file and then renames the file to move it into the cache. But McAfee also opens the file for a virus scan. For a large file, the virus scan may not complete before Unity tries to rename the file, so the rename fails and you never get the asset bundle.<p>For one client I fixed this by patching Unity's .exe file to add a retry loop on the rename call. Unity 5 also works around this issue with the same retry loop.<p>AVG Antivirus causes updates to fail for applications that use wyUpdate. wyUpdate calls the CreateMutex() function in the Windows API to make sure another updater instance isn't already running. Bizarrely, when AVG is installed, CreateMutex() returns the wrong value, so wyUpdate thinks another instance is running and bails out. No updates for you!<p>Going back a few years, I tried NOD32 after some friends recommended it. It seemed fine, except the Alt+Tab key no longer worked. It was a known bug, unfixed for some time.<p>About 5-6 years ago, McAfee had a known bug - unfixed for nearly a year - than under some circumstances it would erase the entire hard drive. This was the ultimate in virus protection!
AVG has a long history of doing scammy things. Starting from pushing toolbars heavily, flagging software that is harmless but poses competition etc. They will never change. Unfortunately, most of the public is not knowledgeable enough to understand this. In Czech Republic many people see this company as a national pride. I have been dealing with that company for a while and certainly do not agree with my fellow countrymen.
A few Mozilla execs have left and gone there.<p>* Gary Kovacs: Former Mozilla CEO: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/garykovacs" rel="nofollow">https://www.linkedin.com/in/garykovacs</a><p>* Harvey Anderson: Former Mozilla Chief Legal Counsel: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/harveyanderson" rel="nofollow">https://www.linkedin.com/in/harveyanderson</a><p>* Todd Simpson: Former Mozilla CIO: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tgsimpson" rel="nofollow">https://www.linkedin.com/in/tgsimpson</a><p>* Rick Fant: Former Mozilla VP of Marketplace: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickfant" rel="nofollow">https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickfant</a>
AVG is clearly circling the drain at this point and doing anything and everything to squeeze out as much revenue as possible before the music stops. Another example is AVG Secure Search, which is effectively malware snuck in with AVG installs. I recently spent a good many hours trying to get it off of my wife's computer, since it doesn't have an uninstaller and the removal tool they provide on their website doesn't work (or at least didn't on her machine). In fact, in researching the issue I came across multiple cases where it not only didn't work, it also deleted people's bookmarks. The program also appears to use common malware techniques to prevent manual removal. And of course, this kind of thing has been going on for years, and the company gives no impression of caring. It really seems like they're now using their experience with malware to... create malware.
There is no shortage of scammy software companies like AVG, but what always cracked me up about AVG was their logo. Do you think it's a coincidence that it bears a strong resemblance to the Windows logo?? Why might that be, hmmmm? Maybe so a bunch of unsophisticated users get the impression it's a real product somehow related to Microsoft?<p>The company is a joke like all the other toolbar companies. I wrote to a number of financial journalists at the WSJ a few years ago begging them to write an expose on these firms and Google's compliance in allowing them to exist. No one ever wrote me back.
When AVG was first launched it was a great AV product. Now, like most services have gone the evil direction. It became pretty obvious they went downhill after directing people who want the free version to buy their other products.<p>I've been uninstalling AVG and replacing it with Microsoft Security Essentials. I know a lot people will be upset over that because [their favorite AV] catches X% more viruses and malware than MSE. But you know what - MSE is light, made by the same company who made the OS, and catches most of the common viruses.
Who the hell uses an anti-virus in 2015? Those things slow down your PC by like 20% for almost no benefit at all. Just don't open suspicious executables (e.g. from torrents), keep your OS and tools up to date and lock your browser down when it comes to plugins and JS execution.
Is there any "good" antivirus? I personally don't use any antivirus software, but I usually install Microsoft Security Essentials for not-quite-tech-savvy family members.
It used to be that government would go after those for deceived people for money. Bait-and-switch is one of the oldest form of fraud there is and its fairly easy to do with 40 pages "policy" written in legalize.
Url changed from <a href="http://slashdot.org/story/299691" rel="nofollow">http://slashdot.org/story/299691</a>, which points to <a href="http://news.softpedia.com/news/avg-proudly-announces-it-will-sell-your-browsing-history-to-online-advertisers-492146.shtml" rel="nofollow">http://news.softpedia.com/news/avg-proudly-announces-it-will...</a>, neither of which are very informative.<p>I found the Wired article by using the 'web' link we added last week to search on the title (which I had to modify a bit). If anyone can suggest a better URL, we'll change it again.
Antivirus was one of the main original reasons I left Windows and started to lean to Free Software. In one hand I had the virus, in the other I had the antivirus, both options were terrible.
Personally, I think if they a) are very upfront about this (clearly stated during install) and b) offer a paid alternative then I'd be fine with this. There's actually some synergy if they do things right: you were most likely infected by a site you visited (most likely a malicious ad), so if they also use this data to track sources (which isn't clear) then it could even make for a better product.<p>Of course if they aren't being clear about the data-for-product swap then I'm not in favor.
The irony... a product that is suppose to protect you from malware becomes the very tool that engages in illegal and unconstitutional data-mining.<p>There used to be a distinction between services offered on the web and apps running on the desktop (spyware, illegal). Windows 10 changed all that (along with lots of help from mobile OSes). It's (constitutional) criminal behavior (eula or not) and should be classified as such.