Avast forum

Luckily I was at school, so it didn't experience it.

 

While I love Avast! this is the second major FP incident in two years. They test these things before sending them out don't they? Or could it have been intentional by a disgruntled employee?

 

Two years?! TWO YEARS!!! Darn it!! Who the hell are you people to allow an error twice in 2 years?! You should be shot!

Right?

 

If you think this hasn't happened at some of those other AV competitors (well known ones at that), then I have some fertile lush land to sell you in West Texas. I am happy they fixed it promptly!

 

I think you guys misunderstood. I'm not freaking out about it, and I know other companies have had a similar problem, it just seems like false positive problems like this shouldn't happen, they need to test the update more before releasing it, and ruining some people's computers.

 

Plus...Avast has so many users that it doesn't take much to get a huge response.

 

odd i was online almost all day and did not experience this at all. i am running the latest beta not sure if that matters but i had no issues at all today? i got to work at around 8am and was using the internet all day pretty much. did i miss this mess?

 

I think today you were the windshield!

 

Reading the blog post comments gives a nice idea how $avarage_joe panicks and deletes everything triggered blindly... Geeez, there is a quarantine feature for a reason, duh!

 

lol haha yeah i guess so

 

I don't see why such a panick for stuff that's detected only online. Even if you delete it or block there is no real harm compared to deletion of a system boot file...

 

Because most users are online and surfing the web. For people who dont know much about AVs and security, they'd panic if they cant surf the web and keep getting malware alerts when they try to do so.

System damage from the FP - low (depending on if it deleted any files or not).
Inconvenience and worry - a lot.

Good to see Avast resolving it promptly though

 

you should check the avast forum. many users did a boot scan, which quarantined/deleted (according each setup) also program files.

 

It's really sad when this type of FP disaster happens to any vendor indeed.
But It think it's more dramatic when it happens to a vendor that has a very popular Free AV used by around 130 Million people

AFAIK Avira hasn't had this type of FP update yet have they?

 

I never saw any issue whatsoever except for that one link posted. The rest of the web came through without a single utterance by Avast. I'm glad it's over though. It happens, there are no perfect humans.

 

Because mankind is bound to fail and die off.

Good that you are not my webmaster, Mr. Fail. Etc. etc. etc. People are unable to use their brain. OMG!!! T3h virus alert! Delete, quick!!!1111!

 

He should learn about the importance of backups.

 

Well...at least there are know-it-alls like you who keep the world running properly.

 

I gave up on "the world". I only keep myself running.

P.S. People whose first idea is to delete their files for which they have no backup would not survive in the past. Too much technology and scientific and social progress unfortunately keeps them running as well. Whether this is desirable is quite a question.

 

when it says infection, some will not look at what the infections are and will freak out. Also if one knows their computer is clean prior to this update and get thousands of infections all at once, wouldn't a bell go off that something might be wrong with Avast? and if you go and delete them without checking around to see if you are the only one, then one is not using some common sense.
robin

 

I knew something had to be up when Avast screamed that www.comcast.net was infected.

robin

 

Security and AVs are far from the first thing in people's minds when they're surfing and much of the population does not know what a FP is and would not go and have a look at when their AV's last update was and even so, would not be able to differentiate whether it was a bad update (people dont know what a bad update or FP is) or a update defining a new threat which previously was not detected.

Lets face it, people's thinking here on Wilders is far from the "average Joe's or Julie's" when it comes to FPs and AVs.

I think the "common sense" (in terms of what the majority think) is delete files your AV detects as malicious or let the AV do it as its likely to be installed with the default automatic settings.

 

Along those lines...

I had been working on music files all day, and using Allmusic.com as a reference for the songs/artists I was working on. All of a sudden, Avast blocked one of the pages I wanted to access on Allmusic.com. I had no idea what was going on, but my first thought was that Allmusic.com had suddenly gotten some sort of rogue virus/script, NOT that my A/V program was corrupt. Then, Avast started blocking a lot of other sites that I wanted to connect to. That's when it dawned on me that the problem was probably with Avast, although I'd never heard of an update being corrupt before this.

The first thing I did was Google "Avast/sites suddenly being blocked" to see if anyone else was having the same problems, but nothing came up at that time. I came to Wilders, and at first didn't see anything here either. It wasn't until a couple of hours later that this thread appeared. I thought about going to BBR, but by then I had decided to uninstall Avast and reinstall it, thinking that something must have gotten corrupt. But even after doing that, it was impossible to update the engine and virus definitions because the site was being bombarded with hits. At least the "old" definitions that came with the install program allowed me to use my computer properly again because the bad update was not in that package.

I didn't lose any program files in the process -- I think there was only one program that Avast wanted to automatically quarantine, but I switched everything in Avast to "ASK FIRST", and kept telling it to take no action. So all I did was waste a lot of time thinking that Avast knew what it was doing when in fact the update was messed up. But for know-it-alls here to be ripping people who are doing the right thing by having a/v's installed, and who do care about our computers and the security of our comptuers, is just mindless. All too common, unfortunately. But mindless nonetheless.

NOTE: And while I make routine full system backups, and had one from a few days ago, it was STILL a P.I.T.A. dealing with this mess, regardless. And for anyone to try to shift the blame onto end users for something that was clearly Avast's fault is ridiculous. Clearly, the first instinct is to trust the A/V, not assume that a routine update was corrupt.

 

Interesting there. True. The average Joe/Jane are not like Wilder members. They trusted the AV and having trusted it got borked instead. That's what happaned to most of the average Joe/Jane.

It is tragic for them. I could not even imagine how delicate/important what they have lost or something...(a sweet red rose for some girl can be an allergy carrier to another..). Most of them are just to busy with each of their profession (not IT) that they soley put their trust with their security apps. Now if that app fails them it is a natural reaction to get mad. Like say, having a new 1TB hard drive (for backup) and it suddenly died after a week (and you being carefull enough with it) because the firmware was flawed...I'd bet 99% of Wilder members will get mad at that scenario and bash the manufacturer. Will you take an apology for loosing what you have backed-up...?

That is the stigma of being "average" and well, just plain damn busy with their profession. Of course everybody has a responsibility to know what's going on with one's pc but then again that is/will be according to their priority. If your an IT guy (or falls near that profession) you will definitely approach it differently versus the average guy..say, in die/metal casting or food industry.

I hope that those know-it-alls here will keep in mind that there are a lot of those average Joe/Jane of different profession that still need to learn more about the in's/out's of pc security. Hey guys..try putting yourself in their shoes for a while. Surely you know a friend that's not into computers but like them anyway?... I do.

The blame should not fall on them (well okay.. blame them just a bit) but the sole result of losing whatever they lost was Avast's. For they (the average) trusted their AV. Unintentional, yes (like the hard drive scenario..) but it "did" hurt them.

I hope the incident/issue will make the average guy/gal stop and think about it for a minute and as much as possible try to learn from it. But then, it will be on their priority (again talking about the average guy..say, in die/metal casting or food industry / tailoring--garment / carpentry).

As for Avast, well I hope they take that into consideration that some(like the average) are not happy with it. And because of it have caused them much or more. Someone mentioned in the blog(or here) "ain't it tested first before releasing.."(something like that..). I am sure that Avast checks them thoroughly but something went wrong with it. So more improvement should be done to again earn the trust of those "average" that got borked.

Just my two cents there.

 

Here is what Vlk said about the avast snafu that happened in December of '09...