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Users of AVG Free 7.5 will have no doubt been harried by AVG with pop-up notifications telling you to upgrade to AVG8. Unhelpfully the link points to the paid version; one now has to dig through pages on the AVG website to find the free version which does still exist!

However, it’s a small mercy. AVG, the new company name for Grisoft, the manufacturers of AVG anti-virus software have decided to put a lot of bloat in their once streamlined software. A pop-up notification now greets the user attached to the bottom of the Control Centre and a new component, the LinkScanner, which may be thought of as well intentioned but it duplicates functionality that is already built into Firefox. Furthermore, when the LinkScanner is disabled it puts AVG8 into a constant sense of panic: the tray icon starts to constantly report that something is wrong, signalling this with an exclamation mark over the tray icon.

After a quick search I found this article which not only shows you how to install AVG8 without the LinkScanner but how to remove the annoying notifications. I reproduce these in my own words below.

Installing AVG8 Without LinkScanner

1. Uninstall AVG7.5 first through the ‘Add/Remove Software’ menu in ‘My Computer’.
2. Download AVG Free 8 from here, choose the link that says ‘Download AVG Free 8.0 (AVG server)‘.
3. Rename the file to ‘avgfree8.exe‘.
4. Move or copy the file to ‘C:\’ hard drive or the primary windows hard drive.
5. Open a command prompt by going to ‘Start -> Run’ and typing ‘cmd’.
6. Type ‘cd\‘ (That’s a backslash)
7. And then copy the following text and paste it into the command prompt you opened by right-clicking:
   avgfree8.exe /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSurf /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSearch
8. Follow through the installation but decline to install the toolbar and deny permission to share information with AVG.

Removing the Control Centre Pop-Up Notification

1. Navigate to ‘C:\Program Files\AVG\AVG8′, or wherever you installed AVG8.
2. Rename the files: ‘avgmwdef_us.mht‘ and ‘avgresf.dll‘ by adding ‘.disabled‘ to the end of each.
   So they will become: ‘avgmwdef_us.mht.disabled‘ and ‘avgresf.dll.disabled‘ respectively.

This is related to my previous post about “Unsuccesful Update” in AVG.

Another issue my laptop suffered, unlike my desktop, was that when you update using the update manager instead of downloading it, installing it clicking ok and away you go, it panicked itself into thinking it was out of date (An ominous yellow box pops up from the toolbar, declaring that you’re in danger and that your virus definitions are out of date, when you literally just downloaded an update) .

To fix this, follow these steps.

1. Go to the AVG Free Control Center by double clicking the AVG icon by the clock.
2. Go to View-> ‘Extended Mode’.
3. Right-Click the [Update Manager] button and select ‘Properties’.
4. Select “Update Immediately” as opposed to “Update upon next computer restart”.
5. Done.

Hope that helps someone, it’s a rather simple thing and wasn’t particularly hard to find but it does seem strange that it comes under ‘Properties’ and not ‘Settings’.

Cheers.

If you have been having similar problems when attempting to update and you have not changed any of your settings e.g. proxy settings. Then here’s how I solved the problem of the dialog saying “Update Unsuccesful” and subsequently Windows XP bugging me every day about my apparently insecure system.

1. Go into the AVG Control Center (The icon is usually in the taskbar, by the clock on Windows XP).
2. Select ‘View’ -> ‘Extended Mode’ (At the top of the window).
3. Left-click ‘Update Manager’ and then left-click the ‘Settings’ button.
4. Select the ‘Advanced’ tab, and left-click the ‘Delete Update Temporay Files’ button.
5. Attempt to update again.
6. Restart your computer.

Hope that helps somebody.

Many people say Windows XP is insecure. They’re probably right on a theoretical level but for the everyday-user it’s perfectly secure.

Points of Entry protection is a strategy that involves saving a lot of time by scanning incoming files for viruses instead of doing a scheduled scan every week or month. This protects your system a lot better.

The internet is dangerous. Rogue ads can infect your system, it’s silly, but true. To prevent such things you should run the latest version of Firefox with AdBlock Plus and FlashBlock. Not only does this clear up your web experience it will also protect you from annoying and unwanted ads and flash, but allow you to view them if you would like. It will also speed up your internet access, as unwanted ads will not be downloaded I suggest you use Adblock’s subscribe feature to subscribe to EasyList or one of the other Adblock filter lists, this saves you the hassle of having to tune it yourself.

So now you’ve got a good, stable, safe platform to view the internet from. But when you download files you still want them scanned. I recommend installing Download Statusbar extension and configuring Anti Virus scan. Install AVG Free from Grisoft, which is not only a capable anti virus solution, it is unintrusive. You can find it here.

I find that the Windows XP SP2 Firewall is ok for the purposes of basic protection and is pretty well configured by default. If there is an application that wants to access the internet it will ask you if you want to let it, and answering in the affirmative will add this to the whitelist. You can always go back later and blacklist programs if you do so wish.

I have tried other firewalls in the past but they not only tend to slow down your system but I doubt they actually protect you any better than the default SP2 firewall, reporting bogus statistics etc.

Remember, if you scan files as they come in to your computer, you don’t have to do a lengthy check every week or month. Likewise, I configure MSN or now Windows Live Messenger to scan all received files by default. You can do this by selecting avgscan.exe in /Grisoft/AVG Free.

Also, if you want to use a download manager or a BitTorrent program, you can sometimes configure these to automatically scan. This way you can save your system from any predatory attacks. The world of downloading has got a lot safer though, and if you use this strategy you will most likely be clear of any viruses.

Alternatively, you could always move to Linux where Win32 viruses are benign :) . We’ll save the conversion speech for another day.