spyware blaster not compatable with AVG 8.0

Discussion in 'SpywareBlaster & Other Forum' started by robinb, Apr 17, 2008.

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  1. rotterdarned

    rotterdarned Registered Member

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    Second Life
    Running AMD Phenom 9500 Quad, 2x8500GT SLI, Vista Premium, Firefox, ZoneAlarm, AVG 8.0, SUPERAntiSpyware, SpywareBlaster, EULAnalyzer.

    I haven't had any problem or conflict between SB and AVG 8.0 - for me, they've run fine together.

    At first, I noticed AVG's peculiar use of the word "warning" in bright red for about +/- 200 ActiveX items found on my system which had an otherwise 100% clean bill of health. Immediately, I wrote this off to AVG's staff's incorrect use of the English language. But, reading the posts here, I can now see how many people became real concerned and I agree -- the AVG guy who posted here in April that they'd issue a fix soon is getting pretty late on delivery.

    Because those items weren't doing any harm and AVG's advice was merely a "warning", I figured SB would agree with the spirit of AVG's position - namely, most all ActiveX items in the Windows registry represent a "potential threat" or "warning" to system health and must be monitored diligently.

    -JD
     
  2. rotterdarned

    rotterdarned Registered Member

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    Re: SpywareBlaster and AVG


    Javacool - exactly so. And many thanks for acknowledging this subtlety that's causing all the fuss.

    To summarize, AVG's employee responded (in this string) apologizing for causing the confusion in users' minds, agreeing with you this is nothing but a cosmetic issue (certainly not an incompatibility) and that they'd do a patch promptly:

    "Re: spyware blaster not compatable with AVG 8.0
    We noticed the problem you described here and we are really sorry about the troubles we caused to all of you. This false detection is a legacy of the ewido engine, but it didn't appear in AVG 7.5 because of the bug in the ewido source code. We have just prepared the fix for this issue. The fix will be released in couple of days with the next public beta version of AVG8. Thank you for your help.
    --
    JardaN - AVG Technologies"

    I just emailed our business account rep yesterday:

    "RE: AVG 8.0 / Spyware Blaster

    AVG FAQ 1198 http://www.grisoft.com/ww.faq.num-1198#faq_1198

    AVG 8.0 actually is fully compatible with the advanced hosts files known as SpywareBlaster, made by Javacool Software.

    All that users are complaining about is AVG 8.0's use of the word "warning" in bright red applied to +/- 200 per station POTENTIALLY dangerous ActiveX entries, following an AVG scan result that displays an otherwise 100% clean station.

    These AVG ActiveX "warnings" pretty much match partial key entry names in SpywareBlaster's ActiveX "Restricted Sites" and blocked sites lists. This makes sense - AVG is merely calling attention to potentially dangerous ActiveX items in the Registry, but is not actioning anything on that list because as long as Windows bundles the ActiveX component of their browser Internet Explorer, such potential threats will continue to appear within the Windows registry keys.

    AVG should kill these bright red "warnings" lists following scans in their recent product upgrade AVG 8.0 - this silly cosmetic issue is what's causing all the fuss amongst AVG Anti-Virus users vis a vis SpywareBlaster.

    AVG 8.0 does not do anything to or with these "warnings" except "warn." But I don't think AVG should even do that, because it is either frightening or confusing users into thinking there is conflict with SpywareBlaster, or worse that they're infected with AVG's warnings list entries.

    The over-riding point is that AVG 8.0 does not do anything to or with SpywareBlaster protection and vice versa. It's essential AVG and Javacool work together swiftly to resolve this misunderstanding in the public's eye.

    Perhaps the easiest way to resolve users' confusions and/or fears will be for AVG to issue an AVG 8.0 patch that kills this bright red list of non-active, post-scan ActiveX red hightlighted "warnings" promptly. The way it stands, this post-scan warning list to a station that is 100% clean serves no positive purpose but has cretaed many needlessly negative views of the 8.0 product.

    As one of the world's leading four networking and internet security firms, I'm certain this issue can be coded by one of AVG's engineers and easily actioned in a patch distribution to the 8.0 users in under 24 hours. Please let Javacool Softwear / Wilders Security and the rest of us on the AVG mailing list know of your patch as soon
    as it's accomplished, so we can all get back to real business.

    Many thanks!"

    -jd
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2008
  3. logicman

    logicman Registered Member

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    Thank you all who have posted in this thread.

    Since upgrading to AVG 8 I have had 5 warnings about activeX malware.

    I would like to think that I know a thing or two about computers, but seeing a list of red-highlighted known trojans had me jumping around for a while.

    Considering that I browse with Firefox in a sandbox, I wondered how the registry was being attacked.

    Then I noticed that every time I deleted the registry keys, Spywareblaster reported 190 components of IE not protected.

    D'uh! :ouch:

    Until AVG fix this horrendous bug in their otherwise excellent program,
    here's my work-around.

    1 ... scan with AVG 8 and remove all items shown as warnings. This ensures my security - it would be dangerous to assume that these are always going to be only false positives.

    2 ... fire up the SpywareBlaster screen and re-enable all protection.

    Now I can feel safe again!

    I hope that this will help people who may be worried about this problem -
    it's not an infection problem.
     
  4. nhr2000

    nhr2000 Registered Member

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    I have just been warned about a 'trojan droppar agent' by AVG 8 after recently upgrading Spyware Blaster to 4.1. Glad to hear that this is probably not a real problem, but a bit disappointed at AVG's response. I've heard some good things lately about Avira's AntiVir - perhaps its time to switch.
     
  5. robinb

    robinb Registered Member

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    it is a false positive as you see in Javacool's "Sticky" and AVG just pushed an update to fix this. I tested it and everything is fine now

    robin
     
  6. logicman

    logicman Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 7, 2008
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    I just downloaded the latest AVG8 updates.
    SpywareBlaster reported no new updates available.

    With all items protected in SB, I ran a quick AVG8 scan
    on the 'usual suspect' areas.

    Result - exactly the same 190 ActiveX items flagged as warned.

    I never had this problem with AVG 7.xx, so logic dictates that this
    is a problem introduced by Grisoft.

    It is wrong of them to say that it is a problem that they cannot fix
    due to the way that SB operates.

    That aside, and giving credit where credit is due, AVG8 toolbar
    has, since day of issue, warned me of many active trojans in google results.

    Sincere thanks for that, AVG8 team. Now, can you please make the
    'warned list' just as accurate?

    Pretty please with sugar on?
     
  7. DougCuk

    DougCuk Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 6, 2008
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    Location:
    London, UK
    What AVG engine version do you have?

    The latest is 8.0.130 - the previous version was 8.0.100
    The SpywareBlaster ActiveX warnings are supposed to be fixed in the latest 130 release - only released for paid for version so far - due on free version very soon.
     
  8. mona7865

    mona7865 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Mar 26, 2008
    Posts:
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    Location:
    Merksem-Antwerp, Belgium
    I've just updated AVG 8.0 to (paid) version 8.0.130, ran a full scan and no more ActiveX items flagged as warned. :D
    Kindly regards,
    Mona.
     
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