Lavasoft Forums to ReOpen?

Well I did a search on this forum for this and did not find anything current,
regarding this topic.....
However with my luck this will already be old news after I post this.*shrug*

Judging by this page, the forums may be on-line soon.....

http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/

Wonder if we'll see the same gang back after the forum was abruptly ended?

I don't see any announcement on the main page

http://www.lavasoft.de/

 

Hello RJ,

A great many of the "old gang" are here: http://www.landzdown.com/index.php

If Lavasoft did re open their forum, my quess would be that they would not return since from my understanding these people were treated rather shabbily.

Regards - Charles

 

I wonder if there will be rule changes away from the rules that lead to the leaving of the old gang.

 

I'm sure there will be, they're not going to want a repeat of the same mistakes. From what I understand, the forum just basically got to be too much for the limited staff running it. I would tend to think that would mean that it will be organized differently, even if just behind the scenes.

 

Very Interesting news, thanks for sharing it.

Being one of the new "old gang" who at least got a few years in i am as much surprised as anyone else and will follow this progress with great interest.

For me i suppose i didn't take the forum staff dismissals as hard as some of the others who had spent far more time then myself in active participation there over the years, but i can confidently say i certainly did enjoy all the efforts i put into assisting both the customers and free users of Ad-Aware during my term. The HijackThis work was of special delight for me personally.

Call me sentimental or whatever but i hope they get 'r up and running again because the more public the exchange of data and info in this field the better for everyone involved AFAIK.

Former Moderator Member of Team Lavasoft!

 

Looks as if they are back......

http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/

 

Indeed so. Registered myself and curious to see how matters progress in that new forum.

 

I also spent a few years there, 2003 til they closed down. At one time, it was a really nice place. Back then, people could get help on almost any computer problem, not just adware removal. I spent most of my time there in the "Windows General" section where we helped people get their systems back to normal and worked with them to set up security software, browser settings, etc so they wouldn't get into the same mess all over again. Apparently, helping users prevent infections was bad for business, so they closed windows general. Users could still get cleaned up but couldn't get help setting up their systems to stay that way. Job security?
The kicker for me were the controversies surrounding dropped detections and the closing and complete deletion of threads that questioned LS about them. WhenU and HotBar come to mind. The only way to get them to respond to our questions was to post them in forums they couldn't control, Spyware Warrior and Freedomlist.
I can only hope that they've learned that customer support leads to product support, and that without the users, their product is nothing. If they have, I wish them well. If not, we'll see the same old story all over again. Either way, I doubt most of the old gang will go back.
Rick

 

Yea, remember when the big updated version was suppose to come out... what was it? 6...? maybe ,was suppose to come out... and it was delayed and delayed and delayed...and all the time users were getting mad because no new signatures were being released...hhmmm....I have no idea what made me remember that except Herbalist posting a look back in time.

 

There is been a tremendous lot of missed opportunity which is been allowed to elapse during the Lavasoft Forum withdraw from the forum communities as pertains to their products as well as support.
Unlikely that can ever be fully recovered without Ad-Aware SE being completely redesigned as well as offering some sort of HIPS feature.
They have been chiefly an intrusion detector plus remover in most instances but malware always held the upper hand more often than not on them, hence my suggestion tipping to HIPS.

I am not in anyway biased due to the forum closing as some maybe but i fully recognize that EWIDO and others not only assumed command of that detection/removal arena but proved their staying power and is as that stands to this day.

The Lavasoft Forum staff back then was held in very high esteem and were very effective in offering solid solutions, alternatives, and basically just nice friendly folks who spent enormous amountss of their own time addressing the public and customer concerns without fail.

It remains to be seen if they can make up any of that ground that they let slip passed them before. Malware developers have proven quite formidable in this day and age and it takes more than an ego trip or a popular name to meet their challenges with any real success and indeed to win the confidence of users who turn to vendors for the programs that best protect their investments.

 

The paid version already does have some behavior blocking capability. The problem is, though, that in practice behavior blockers really don't work because they depend on the user to make correct decisions about things that they really don't know about. Look at the statistics, people just guess, and most of the time end up allowing infections to occur. What's worse is that if you allow the first few prompts but then start blocking, and the malware is half installed, it can make things worse than if the infection had just completed entirely.

Personally I think it's safer to just take a 'wait and see' stance. Without knowing everything about what's going on, it's pretty much impossible to make any kind of determination about what's best or what will happen. Lavasoft has been around for a long time, and obviously things are changing, so only time can tell what all will happen.

 

I can't elaborate and won't since i've not thoroughly reviewed it just yet of what all is being discussed, but theres a front page write-up on Ad-Aware SE at http://www.rootkit.com that blasts their product pretty hard.

Like i say, i'm staying neutral from this untill i have the time to read and consider everything thats being asserted from this article about it's failure.

 

Yeah, and it is being addressed. It's good that the info has come out, but I have to say the way it was done left a bad taste in my mouth. When it comes down to it, I think people would be pretty disappointed if they were to see how most anti-spyware scanners really work. With the exception of the lack of verifying the database update, there were no big surprises. Why the author of that article chose to target Ad-Aware specifically, other than that it's the most well known, is something that I wonder about.

I don't mean that to trivialize the points raised in any way, there are certainly some valid concerns, however I'm not going to just take it at face value either. There is some speculation as to whether the author of the post is acting on some kind of grudge against Lavasoft. You'll notice that if you take the posted article to heart, there is no room left for Lavasoft to redeem themselves, they look bad no matter what. Compare that to other vulnerability reports; some have been far more serious (not just potential bypass vulnerabilities, which most scanners have, but arbitrary code execution and such), but because of how the issues were presented the company was able to just fix the issue(s) and move on, both sides better for the experience. The opposite is true in this case. Not only that, but by releasing this vulnerability, with source, without contacting Lavasoft first (on a malware site, no less) Ad-Aware users were put at risk before Lavasoft had any chance to remedy the situation. This also forces Lavasoft to rush out a fix (rushed fixes will never be adequate) giving the author further chance to criticize the company. By the time Lavasoft can adequately resolve the situation, people's attention will have drifted elsewhere.

 

Well a renown rookie LSChris fry already flexed his forum rights over one of my simple posts. I will assume it was in part due to a small reference i mentioned to a very high respected management official who used to run that forum excellently before, so since it was not a product issue they likely felt no obligation to introduce even a simple response, but instead it was quickly censored.

No surprise really, with the same spots, the same expectations are to be expected.

Doesnt really show much interest in even coming close to where it once stood in the secueirty community.

EWIDO!! ALL THE WAY!! And others!!!!!!!!!!!!!