& Avast Clear 17.2.34190 http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/avast_software_uninstall_utility.html https://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility
Sadly,The False Positive stuff has happened before where Avast went nuts blocking good files/sites. I Find it difficult to see a reason why it happens so often with Avast.
It's either sloppiness, incompetance, or pushing their engineers too hard (to the point they make massive mistakes like this). Either way, it's inexcusable once, let alone multiple times. I'm keeping AVG and Avast off my system for the forseeable future.
MBAM has had bad definition updates released that crippled machines, SAS detected itself after an update, Norton has caused major issues at one time or other. Is there a security program immune?
Anon, agreed. Krusty - MBAM is downright awful with 3.0, and I removed it from my machine. SAS has been worthless for years. Norton is... Norton. Meh. Is there a security program immune? Immune is an absolute, but are there any that don't have a bad reputation because of it? YES! All of the other security programs that are out, that haven't had this problem!
I have a question: is the talk of Avast False Positives circular news or do you have bad experience out of first hand? Reason I ask is that I have put Avast on a lot of PC's of family members with hardened mode set to aggressive. To date I never heard about any problem. I realize that average PC users, use their PC's to do things and average member of this forum do things to their PC, so that might make a major difference in regard to the cloud white list and false positives. Regards Kees
Kees - https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/avast-2017.391826/page-5#post-2654697 I don't want to take this thread off topic, so real quick: The latest release of MB 3 so far seems to run OK here after a clean install but your mileage my differ. SAS? Yeah, it sucks and has no place on my machines. As for Norton, that depends on your perspective. I have replaced Norton on two of my machines with the free version of Avast, but it isn't so much the programs problem, rather Symantec's adgenda I have a problem with.
@Krusty and @anon Thanks that explains it, in hardened mode the white list probably prevails, otherwise I would have had lot's of phone calls.
An immediate answer to your question exists in Avast Forum (read the complaints from the users re the FP).
I can deal with FP's not related to windows files but the entire problem is a similar problem occurred even in 2014/15. I understand they are working hard integrating AVG and Avast together and improving the backend but it's still a worrying situation for the everyday Joe. God knows how many out of 400 million ran scans on the day of the faulty VPS and bricked their machines
The point is, there were the same problems in v2 during release, as there were in v3. You were the one who brought in those specific examples, so those are the responses I gave. /shrug @Windows_Security - This has happened in the past with Avast at least once, but if my memory serves correctly, it's happened more than that. It was fairly widespread then, no idea how widespread it is now. Though the point is: If something is known for borking systems, do you stick with it because "it hasn't happened to me yet", or do you proactively cut bait and move on to something else? Me personally? I cut bait and move on. But I'm not here to tell anyone what to do, or what not to do. Edit - I personally find the concept of brand loyalty to software kind of ridiculous. I'll use the tool that fits my needs the best, and if something else changes to fit the bill better, I'll move on when it's cost/time effective to do so. Sticking with something because you like the name/logo/country of origin/color of the UI/brand of coffee they stock in their cafeteria over their reliability/effectiveness, I mean... That seems silly to me.
Yes I agree, this stuff is unacceptable. BTW, is it still true that Avast monitors and uploads every single site that you visit?
As I said mistakes happen but such issues happening more often are a little worrying considering the huge user base.
I don't think it is ridiculous. When you look at the real world around us brand loyalty does matter. Specific example: In Holland a Mobile Telecom brand was taken over by a larger telecom operator, who killed the brand (after two years). Four years later some smart marketeers revived the brand, now only as a mobile distributor (so capitalizing only on the brand name ONLY) ironically using the network of a big foreign telco (a competitor of the company who took it over). Within 6 months after go-to-market they had 200.000 paying clients again (2/3 of the number of clients when they were taken over six years earlier). Generic example: Brand loyalty is the asset of a brand and the rationale behind brand value. Brand value is the stock value of a company minus the real value of hard assets like buildings, bank accounts and soft assets like intellectual property and goodwill. When you say brand loyalty of software is ridicule, you say the stock value is ridicule: just have a look at percentage of software companies in the 10 companies with highest stock value (Apple, Facebook, Google, etc). EDIT: I am a rainmaker for IT-companies, with specialization in branding
@Windows_Security Hey, my Google-fu is failing me, I seem to have read one of your guides in some other forum to make this version of Avast run faster. I seem to remember adding read/write exclusions, would you be able to paste it here as well?
Prerequisite: you should have UAC enabled otherwise UAC protected folders are completely unprotected: link Tip: use hardening tool to protect against posined documents: link Note I have also set UAC to block elevation of unsigned (you can still execute unsigned software)
It's ridiculous when people stick with something because of the brand, rather than what they get out of it, especially if they got screwed over by said brand. Even in your example, the people CAME BACK, which means they left in the first place, which is exactly my point. If a good brand had a few instances of borking systems, you don't think it's out of the norm to want to move on to something else? Or, as another example... One poster on here bought a piece of software (from a major brand, not an independant or small dev) because it still supports XP. He then went on to say "I don't know if I'll ever install this or not, but I want to support companies that still support XP" ....What?
In the example I gave the brand was killed (relabeled) by the company which took it over, so people did not leave the brand. I istalled Avast Using the whitelist mode (hardened mode) not the blacklist, so the problem with blacklist definitions did not seemed to affect my relatives, otherwise I would have had a lot of phone calls.
