A2 Updates Question

[ftwynne59]

Curious to understand the A-Squared updates methodology.....

I have the free version of A2 and regularly update (updates are downloaded almost daily now...).Some updates however (and these are rare) are decribed as 'Cumulative Updates' and can have 170k plus signatures to download. My question is this....why have (almost) daily sig updates and then a huge 'bowave' of sigs in the form of a cumulative update ?

Regards

ftwyyne59

[_ah_]

Cumulative means: "All prior signatures in one big file."

They are released to keep the signature database less fragmented to avoid delays while starting and do mostly occur once a month.

[ftwynne59]

Thanks to ah....

I understand the term Cumulative...what I dont understand is why can't these updates be captured and downloaded from the (almost) daily updates ??? Are the cumulative updates a wholly different set of updates from the more regular ones ??

Dont know if I'm explaining myself very well...appreciate some clarity here...

Many thanks

ftwynne59

[Beefcarver]

I think its like a all added together totalled tally of the daily updates where they have the daily update and if any more things needed to be added to that days worth then they summ it all up together. viruses and trojans are every day every hourly made by bad people trying to ruin others internet experiences or computers... I think of it that way, they put out a days worth then compliment it with added stuff or other threats that Occur within a days time frame. but I might be wrong. 175691 signatures to check against I like that. and feel safe with that.

[ftwynne59]

Thanks for your response Beefcarver....but still not truly enlightened on this one !!!

Anyone else have any thoughts on my original and subsequent posts ? The answer is still eluding me.....

Thx in advance for all responses.

ftwynne59

[toadbee]

@ftwynne59 -
Are you asking why a2's signatures aren't compiled into one file each time you download an update? Why I think that would be a programming nightmare ;D They need to make sure everyone is on the same page at all times etc. You could always ask at their forum.

[mrgeek]

The use of small daily updates is usually to benefit those on dialup who would find it time consuming to download large files each time an update was issued.

[ErikAlbert]

-{ Quote: "The use of small daily updates is usually to benefit those on dialup who would find it time consuming to download large files each time an update was issued." }-
I don't see your point.
Small daily updates or large updates, doesn't matter for a dialup or cable, because you have to download them BOTH.
A2 Free doesn't allow you to make a choice between both, it just executes the update without possible interference of the user and there are no settings to make that possible either.
If I'm wrong correct me. :)

[bellgamin]

I think DrWeb does much the same thing -- multiple updates daily, then a cumulative update weekly on Sunday.

Why? Because it's there (I guess). ::)

aloha.. bellgamin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Since an orange is called an orange, why isn't a grape called a purple?

[ftwynne59]

OK...I interpret the responses so far as this :

There are regular (i.e individual,smaller) updates, followed by irregular (i.e cumulative, larger) updates. The cumulative updates are a 'round-up' of all previous regular updates.This means that A2 is forcing you to download the cumulative updates,even though one may have already done so via the previous regular updates (A2 does not give you choice to download and install...it is automatic). Surely this is duplication of effort (and on dial-up a bit of a pain!!)

Just have to live with it I guess..

Cheers all

ftwynne59

[patermann]

If you just received incremental (regular) updates, each in its own file, eventually you would have hundreds of files in the Signatures directory which would have to be read and loaded each time you ran the program. Reading all of those files takes time and reasources, more than than if the signatures were all in a single file of the same overall size as the individual updates combined. My guess is that they produce a cumulative update containing all of the signatures to date so that they can delete all of the incremental updates in order to make the program start up (and run?) quicker.

There is some duplication but consolidating the signatures into one file may allow some optimisations which could mean that the cumulative update is actually smaller than the sum of the incremental updates. Removal of false positives may also reduce the overall size of the signatures file although this is not guaranteed.

Even with the cumulative updates every so often, it is much better than some anti-virus programs which insist that you download the full database (in some cases several MB!) every time.... :(

HTH

patermann

[Beefcarver]

LOL Ok Lets consoladate our responces together Lmao ;D All I can say now is
complain if a software manufacturer doesnt update enough. Now complain if they
do a small update, and Omg complain if they do a cumulative update. Gee Wiz
arent ya just happy at least they update the darn thing and if not they update it daily. so add it all up 1+1=2 and 2+2= 4 be happy. ::)

[ErikAlbert]

-{ Quote: "LOL Ok Lets consoladate our responces together Lmao ;D All I can say now is
complain if a software manufacturer doesnt update enough. Now complain if they
do a small update, and Omg complain if they do a cumulative update. Gee Wiz
arent ya just happy at least they update the darn thing and if not they update it daily. so add it all up 1+1=2 and 2+2= 4 be happy. ::)" }-
Sometimes we need to increase our number of posts, whatever it takes ;D

[Mongol]

-{ Quote: "Sometimes we need to increase our number of posts, whatever it takes ;D" }-

Working towards #200... :o 8)

[ErikAlbert]

I'm a moderator in a very small Free Lotto Forum and I noticed that some members did a race with their number of posts and wrote one silly post after another.
Sometimes they posted 3 times to say sorry : "I'm sorry." - "I'm sorry too" - "I'm sorry three".

So I asked the webmaster to remove the number of posts from the forum.
He removed it, but after a few days he had to put it back, because everybody was complaining, but the race was over. :)

[Beefcarver]

-{ Quote: "Sometimes we need to increase our number of posts, whatever it takes ;D" }-

LoL 2 funny but its the truth. Oh and BtW yalls can add this post too...

[bellgamin]

-{ Quote: "LoL 2 funny" }-LoL 3 funny. (Nexxxxxt!) :P

[sweater]

I have no problem updating my A-Squared free version. I'm on dial-up, and I could understand that sometimes errors occur and I just closed it and then re-open and update it again on other days and updates was successfull. Now their latest updates when I update it A2-Squared has improved in their scanning speed and I was pleased that they've done so. It really can detects something others can't. 8)