AVG 8 Professional COMPLAINTS

Discussion in 'other anti-virus software' started by MISS CHIEVOUS, May 5, 2008.

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  1. MISS CHIEVOUS

    MISS CHIEVOUS Registered Member

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    Among the five hard drives I have in my SCSI system, one is dedicated exclusively to graphics. This is a slow, older 180-GB hot-swappable SCSI drive that's noisier than hell (Drive "G" aptly labeled "GRAPHICS"). I expressly do not want to hear my AV program grinding away on Drive G everyday, and accordingly set up any and every scheduling option to exclude Drive G.

    PREFERENCES OVERWRITTEN
    My first major complaint about AVG Professional ver. 8 is that, apparently with each new update my drive/file exclusion preferences are wiped out. :mad: Thus, every day I am suffered to hear the Russian Czech Army burning up my G drive while it needlessly examines millions of little gif and jpg files . . . unless, of course, I can remember to daily go in and reset my Preferences. Did a baboon write this new code? :rolleyes: I got in on the one-year free deal they had last December and my license will expire December 1, but I don't know if I can even stand it another 7 days let alone another 7 months.

    ICON IRRITATIONS
    The next irritant relates to features that I do not want and — worse, AVG's punitive response to my opting out of these features. There are two features called Web Shield and Link Scanner. I'm not a 4-year old who needs her browsing to be monitored, and I don't want either of these features. The minute you disable one or both of these Nanny features you are suffered to be staring at a rude red exclamation-marked icon in your System Tray . . . meaning that you now cannot discern when legitimate attention is needed because your rude little icon ubiquitously sits there, announcing your program in a permanent error state.

    I tell you I don't know that I can stand it another day!

    AVG has also thrown away the color scheme that made their program unique, and now their icon looks like every other primary-color-scheme icon out there.

    I have alerts scheduled with a couple of forums I do my shopping through for ESET deals but I'm actually tempted at this point to uninstall AVG Professional ver. 8 and downgrade to their Free Version if only not to have to be daily reprogramming the stupid thing to stay the hell off of my G Drive!

    MC
     
  2. vinzenz.ewido

    vinzenz.ewido former ewido team

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    First of all I wonder why are you loudly complaining here instead of using your advantage of being abled to contact our Technical Support and tell us directly what is wrong. We always try to find a suitable solution to fix things happening like that.

    The preferences and the icon problem are known bugs and should be fixed soon. I am sorry for the inconvenience. But you should have really contacted our support they would have assist you. :S

    Regards,
    Vinzenz
     
  3. chrome_sturmen

    chrome_sturmen Registered Member

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    vinzenz, sie sagen entschuldigung für ihre grobheit :rolleyes: :p
     
  4. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

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    Hello,
    Is that why the "first impressions" thread was removed from the grisoft forums?
    Too much clamor over a botched release?
    Mrk
     
  5. vinzenz.ewido

    vinzenz.ewido former ewido team

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    I am not aware of that thread, but of course some threads are removed if they're like getting out of control. I don't have a problem with complaining in general. But if he would have contacted our support first he would have been told that the two bugs he mentioned are known and are going to be fixed.

    I need to say that I don't really get your point of calling the release of AVG8 "botched".

    AVG8 is a complete new product with a huge new codebase, new features, new scanning engine, completly rewritten from scratch. That there wouldn't be any issues it would have been suspicious, really. We're trying hard, and if I say that I mean it like that, to test our software hardly in the QA department.
    But we still are not able to test it for all software and configurations and machines out there.

    We're working hard on it to speed up the slow downs, where they occour, we're fixing bugs, improving the architecture to be more efficent and less resource hungry.

    We hear you when you complain, in emails to our techsupport, in the official avg free forums or even somewhere else if we come accross such threads, messages etc we check the things internally at least. Probably we're not answering everyday but we're working hard on improving your experience with our software and we're trying hard to find new and improved ways to protect you from being catched by malware. It is a tough one but we're really working hard on it.
    From outside you might not see all the busy bees which are all working together to get the software running and the threats detected and eliminated.

    Anyway, if our company wouldn't care about the users, do you think that our CTO (kodl) would come here and answer you questions? Of course he's a busy man and has loads of work to do but still he finds some time now and then to leave you a message here in the forums.

    All I can say is that we're trying hard to get you protected and your user experience more comfortable. Some people might not be happy with our new design of user interface and colorschemes. But we're trying to make it as easy as possible for the regular user with not much experience who needs to be protected against all the nasty things out there.

    Well I hope you understand our standpoint as a software vendor better now.

    Regards,
    Vinzenz
     
  6. Pinga

    Pinga Registered Member

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    Fair enough, but I get the impression that you are scaring away power users in an effort to please the masses with bright-coloured icons and an all-singing-and-dancing interface.

    Of course you need to make money and your all-new code base deserves applause, but please be careful to keep the subtle things that made AVG unique in the first place.
     
  7. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

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    Hello,

    Well since you responded to my jibe, it's only fair that I tell you how I see things.

    I always LOVED AVG. It used to be the lightest, least obtrusive AV product that I knew of. Worked like a charm. I had it recommended and installed to many of my friends and family members. I even use it on some of my own machines.

    This was up until version 8.0.

    Now, what happened is the same thing MS did to Giant AS:

    - You can deselect Web Shield on install - it will get installed anyway. Only the command line option works to get it removed. Furthermore, the web options, toolbar etc are slow, full of FP and frankly smell of all those toolbars you try to get rid of in the first place.
    - Scanning has been made terribly slow.
    - Scanning system or memory is extremely difficult now; you need to uncheck 5-6 options instead of selecting one.
    - Memory usage has increased.
    - The system tray icon will red out on any little "exclusion."
    - Not enough advanced control for experienced users.

    Now, how I see these results:

    Not everyone is a noob or Vista/IE user. Not everyone thinks the web is the devil's lair. Not everyone fears infections or see threats every 5 minutes. For some, the web is a cool sweet place.

    And these people use AV in order to be responsible. That is, they scan files they send to other people or receive from other people, not because they fear infections, but because they want to be responsible, detect FP, report detections, and stop potential malware chains.

    These people have been punished and virtually told - don't use our product. In fact, the counterproduce of AVG 8 is that a large percentage of experienced AVG users will switch to other products - or stop using AV altogether.

    I don't know if AVG cares about 1.34% of these experienced users. But the end result is, for example myself, will stop using AVG altogether.

    This means:

    Mrkvonic no longer reporting on average 5-6 FPs every year.
    Mrkvonic no longer recommending AVG to tens of people he knows.
    Mrkvonic will no longer contribute to the anti-malware war, because he will grace out of using AV altogether.

    Now, what I'd do (and how I see things):

    - Allow everyone to choose what they want, need or like. If someone wants to disable options, it's their business and choice. The defaults should not be shoved down their throats.

    - LinkScanner is a bad idea. It's the old fashioned approach of blacklisting. It makes people fear ghosts and phantoms. As if web pages are voracious beasts trying to eat them. Which does not mean that pages are safe if flagged ok! Using a bot to tell you if pages are good or not leaves no responsibility to the user to decide. The correct way to use the web is either by white listing or no listing. Flagging 9 billion pages that exist today is simply a useless effort.

    Web scanners are a nice gimmick, but:
    - they eat bandwidth
    - slow browsing
    - potentially questionable privacy issues
    - lots of FPs
    - false sense of security
    - deny user responsibility
    - useless because the right choice of a browser solves all these problems

    Think about it.

    Cheers,
    Mrk
     
  8. jdenton

    jdenton Registered Member

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    I really don't see how anyone can be unhappy over something as trivial as the UI. The old AVG 7.5 looked like a Windows 95 app... simply horrible. Of course I didn't mind since UI has no effect on the other aspects of the program.

    Regarding the complaints about the exclaimation mark on the systray icon if any components are turned off, I do feel that an option should be given to ignore the warnings if the user doesn't want to see them, like the old AVG 7.5 does. What's quirky is that the helpfile for AVG 8.0 says that this option is available... but it's not.
     
  9. solcroft

    solcroft Registered Member

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    Even the free version has been terribly effective against Zlob/Delflob domains, and several others. Zlob/Delflob in particular is especially important because their writers tweak their code on a daily basis to bypass conventional scanning. I tried 12 Zlob websites yesterday; AVG whacked all but one. While another product completely missed every one of them (because they were the same files, just all linked to from different domains).

    One up for LinkScanner in my book. I'm still not sure how the technology works, but the key issue is that it does.

    Scanning something without introducing an additional overhead is technically impossible.

    See previous.

    Any examples?

    Nothing is 100%, but every bit helps.

    Now I've heard it all.

    Using other browsers is an alternative. Not everyone prefers that alternative, plus other browsers have their own exploits as well. Also, why claim that a web scanner is redundant but still use an antivirus at all? Why not just tell everyone that every single security product for Windows is useless, because everyone should be using Linux?

    Think about it.
     
  10. Dark Shadow

    Dark Shadow Registered Member

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    Ok folks please come down,I see No reason for the complaints here In wilders, thats why AVG have tech support/forums for.If you dont like the product don't use simple as that,why bash the product if it does not work for you,its like crying over spilled milk nothing gets accomplished.If you like the product but mad because something does not work for you or what ever issues you have, why not take the appropiate support action Its there for a reason.
     
  11. Diver

    Diver Registered Member

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    There is way too much complaining in this forum, and way too many unsupported opinions.

    As Tom Hanks said in "Saving Private Ryan", there is a correct way to gripe.
     
  12. MISS CHIEVOUS

    MISS CHIEVOUS Registered Member

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    Your inability to discern my sex is consistent with your nonresponsiveness to the concerns raised. Note that I am a woman. If the body of the post itself did not do justice to that biological fact then the large type size declaring my User Name should for pity's sake have done so. Skip it; the greater offense follows:

    If I have to take the effort to summarize in writing just two glaring issues with this product (I inadvertently omitted the offensive Search Nanny feature, or whatever you've named it, also disabled), why on earth would I do Grisoft the undeserved courtesy of privately communicating my issues to you? Your reputation is not my concern Sir; an unbiased effort at vigorous consumer interaction is. You'll never achieve excellence by indulging your vanity through privately-negotiated communications. Transparency — the thing Grisoft is so apparently intimidated by that it cannot summon the will to host its own public forum for products it would suffer the public to pay for . . while favoring those masses who use your Free version of the same with their own forum! to the bafflement of not just myself but an incredulous Wall Street — Transparency is why I almost always recognize the superiority of a publicly-accessible forum for such issues.

    You can't have it both ways Sir. You can't deprive a paying clientele of a publicly-accessible forum sponsored on your own website and then show up on a Third-Party-sponsored topical one such as this and cry foul. Your hypocrisy recalls to me a favorite line I read many years ago in a work of fiction. If you'd midwifed your own birth you'd have added to the world by your usual subtraction.

    Grisoft needs very badly to stop playing at being a corporation and begin acting like one. A healthy start would be to begin valuing your paying clientele more than the legions of Users who are using your Free Version only because a Free Version of something better isn't available. I know this hurts, but alas, there it is. Do you want to stroke your wounded pride or do you want to make money? Park your vanity at the door and allow the public to openly debate your product at your expense. I am a CEO and know a thing or two of what I speak. Shocking, I know. And a woman. What is the world coming to? :D

    No Sir you do not. Years ago I wrote Grisoft and urged you in no uncertain terms that on principle I typically withheld my support for products and services when the corporate philosophy was to hide behind an email address and deliberately withhold a forum which would, inevitably (as all forums do) expose the weaknesses of the product. To corporations everywhere I advise this: Either sponsor your own forum . . . or allow a militant (and not often polite) public to wag your tail for you. Get ahead of the public . . . or be whipped by them. It's your choice.

    When your company wouldn't even reply to this suggestion — forwarded with considerably more kindness than I've accorded you here — I determined then and there that I couldn't support the commercial versions of your product. What did it say about your standards for Quality, that you couldn't summon the corporate humility to accept public criticism? tsk.

    I next emailed Grisoft some months later and advised your company that you badly needed to produce a PDF chart comparing every feature difference between your commercial products. If you want people to pay for your product, you had better tell them on which features the pricing turns, and be detailed about it.

    Really you don't deserve my candor.

    No Sir. The strategy is to not release the upgrade with these kinds of structural deficiencies. In your vanity it never dawned upon you that Users might grow just a little annoyed at being suffered to look permanently upon a rude little error icon, knowing that it is there for no other purpose than that we have (obviously) disabled the three most intrusive features of the program? That we are adults, and generally not pleased to have our browsing monitored by you?

    A public forum would have spared you this disaster of an upgrade before you jumped ahead.

    But the thought that you would show up here — on someone else's site — and complain to me is just pathetic.

    Miss Chievous
     
  13. Bubba

    Bubba Updates Team

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    I have moved a number of totally un-related posts from this thread and chose to create a separate thread for further discussion. It wasn't easy and neat but it is what it is. The alternative was to make the posts vanish but beings it could continue as a good discussion IMO and considering my mood, those that wish to continue can do so here.

    Let's attempt to stay relatively on topic Please, especially you folks that visit\contribute to our forums on regular basis.

    Thanks,
    Bubba
     
  14. Macstorm

    Macstorm Registered Member

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    Good post, Vinzenz :thumb:
     
  15. jdenton

    jdenton Registered Member

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    I think it has less to do with transparency than the strange way you go about to solving your problem. Have you contacted AVG support, or was complaining here the first thing you thought of doing? In which case it leaves one in doubt whether you're more interested in resolving issues, or complaining for the sake of complaining...

    How does AVG "monitor" your browsing? All it does is scan your downloads and check if the links you clicked on are safe. And if you're this mature grownup (as you claim) who knows what's best for you, all AVG does is to give a warning that you can easily ignore. In no way does it forbid you from visiting the sites you want to.

    Not really. You're just another one among the hundreds of millions in the world. Nothing shocking about it at all.
     
  16. vinzenz.ewido

    vinzenz.ewido former ewido team

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    I am sorry for that, I have missed that fact.

    In general my post was not intended to be mean. Probably the language barrier (since I am not a native speaker) caused to make my post sounding to be mean. I am really sorry for that.

    I just was surprised that you complained here about something what is not working, without having contacted the Support in first place, where they would have told you that it will have been fixed in an upcoming build.

    Of course we have issues in our software and we're not denying it. And we're working hard on making our software suitable and usable for the majority of our customers.

    Our intention is to protect the innocent and (in security questions) uneducated people against the threats out there and from my understanding this is the reason why we're offering our services/software.


    I did not cry "foul" I just expressed my wondering about that a person who is entitled to get support directly by AVG Technologies prefered complaining on a forum. Additionally I gave you the short answer to those complains.
    We know we did it not right and we're going to fix it.

    Well to the rest I can't say anything. I can't make any comments on those accusations, because I am just a no-one, a tiny nothing saying developer. And my statements cannot and should be considered as "official statements" by AVG Technologies because I am not in the position to do such.

    FYI: We are on wilders since I was initially developing at AVG Anti-Spyware which has its on subforums here, but discontinued since its technology was merged into the AVG 8 Productline and made the need for an additional Anti-Spyware program obsolete.

    That is the reason why we/I am here, and of course a topic "AVG 8 Professional COMPLAINTS" will catch my attention.

    Anyway I am sorry for my offensive post, it was not meant to be mean.

    :oops:

    Best Regards,
    Vinzenz Feenstra
     
  17. rookieman

    rookieman Registered Member

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    Can some people here answer a question in the proper manner without bashing a postero_OStick to the topic at hand and never mind asking the poster if they're a grownup!!!:thumbd:
     
  18. BlueZannetti

    BlueZannetti Registered Member

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    Folks,

    Lets stay focused on the product, not the posters.

    Blue
     
  19. Firecat

    Firecat Registered Member

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    I may be wrong, but it is my impression that AVG 8 was rushed out the door (likely due to marketing pressures?) without being 100% finished. Thats probably why such glaring issues remained in the software even after release. And thats probably where the company went wrong.

    I think they do already. The Technical Support option (and additional features) is only available for paid customers, and in my opinion Grisoft's support remains amongst the best. In my experience, Grisoft's support may take days or even months to find answers for a problem a user is experiencing, but they do not forget. I have my own personal experiences to speak of where I thought Grisoft had forgotten about my support ticket, one month down the line, they were still analyzing the cause of my problem and sent me (by email) yet another method to try and see if I could solve the issue!

    Even if my issue didn't get solved, the fact that they offered solutions with no prompting from me, even after long intervals with no reply from them and no further prompting on the issue from me - thats support for me. And I think thats some very good support.

    If you ask me, the tech support for AVG will get you much better answers than any forum would.

    I have to agree on this - as a customer it is important for me to know which features I want, and what I can get for the amount of money I want to pay. A detailed PDF chart works wonders in this regard, currently Grisoft has a very simplified method of showing these differences. A list on a page does not generate interest for users to read and see what they get. A chart, however, creates considerably more interest due to its easy approach and defining all the products in a nutshell.

    Now, regarding the free AVG forum, it is meant for free users only, where they help each other out with little or no official help from AVG's personnel. It was only meant to provide a platform for support for the free products which do not have any official backing on the tech support front. Since free users are a big reason why AVG is relatively popular today, it would be imperative to keep those users happy and interested in AVG, while providing higher and better benefits for the paid customers. But I'm sure you know all this, so I myself do not know where I'm going with this. :doubt:

    In any case, as a customer I've been generally satisfied with my AVG product - the support is good, the pricing is excellent and the product works. AVG 8.0 does have some bugs, but it doesn't affect me directly, plus I'm willing to give some patience to a company whose technical support and marketing teams have helped me on countless issues, including but not limited to virus submissions, program faults, incompatibilities, license issues and even a stolen license.

    BTW, this post comes from a 16-year old, someone who hasn't yet seen the full realities of the world. So obviously some of what I say may not make sense, or may not be correct. Feel free to correct me anytime. :)

    BTW, this is an addendum:

    I had an inkling kodl was the CTO, but was never 100% sure. Thanks for confirming that. :)
     
    Last edited: May 7, 2008
  20. maddawgz

    maddawgz Registered Member

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    that will be good so i can turn of linkscanner, and dont get the red ! mark appart from that i like it, few bugs with firefox and webshield, but yeah the 7.5 was old and ugly:rolleyes:
     
  21. ccsito

    ccsito Registered Member

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    You raise an interesting comment. I believe that most people would go to a forum to complain about a product if they felt that they did not get the proper attention or response from the vendor's forum or its knowledge base. Also another possible reason might be aimed at disseminating the user's experiences to as far as wide a user community as possible. For most things in life, your ability to proclaim your opinions about things (such as your individual product ratings) would be very limited if it were not for the WWW.

    But anyway, if a product did revert back to the original configuration each time it starts up, that would be a bit of an annoyance for me to reconfigure it everytime at startup. But of course, I am only a user of the product and not its author so I either take it or leave it. :D
     
  22. maddawgz

    maddawgz Registered Member

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    thankgod for the WWW huh, imagine if you brought it from shop like old days, i dont think the girl/guy at checkout would care to much, i think it's great Vinzenz comes here and replys..... when is the next module update?
     
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