AVG Labels iTunes Malware

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You can file this story in the “wrong but it feels o’ so right” section. :D

AVG's free antivirus product temporarily blocked users from getting to iTunes late last week, detecting it as a Trojan, the company said on Monday. For about five hours on Friday starting around 4 p.m. PDT, AVG users couldn't access iTunes because of the false alarm.
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lol, people shouldn't be using AVG anyway.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
Yeah I noticed this and was scratching my head when it started popping up on systems.
 
Time to go back to AVG, finally someone got it right :D:D
 
Well, it isn't exactly wrong. AVG is crap these days. Its kind of shocking how bad the program has gotten.
 
That's awesome. Finally somebody got it right.

I hate iTunes but due to my iPhone 3G I'm stuck with the piece of shit software as I had no spare Windows licenses for a VM at the time. However, when I move to Windows 7, iTunes is getting installed in a VM for the foreseeable future.
 
I've used Avira and Avast and they are both great free alternatives to AVG. Avast has a strange interface, but the resident shield isn't too bad. Avira has a once a day ad pop up that doesn't care what you're doing (e.g. games). I've had it pop up on me at the worst possible times. But it's a decent free alternative. I haven't tried the MS Security Essentials.
 
kirbyrj said:
I've used Avira and Avast and they are both great free alternatives to AVG. Avast has a strange interface, but the resident shield isn't too bad. Avira has a once a day ad pop up that doesn't care what you're doing (e.g. games). I've had it pop up on me at the worst possible times. But it's a decent free alternative. I haven't tried the MS Security Essentials.
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That popup can be easily blocked.

 
Stoly said:
Time to go back to AVG, finally someone got it right :D:D
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:D

In all reality though, this is why AVG sucks. McAffee did this, now AVG.
When you flag hugely popular software as malware (or a Windows file), you suck at what you do.
 
Rebel44 said:
That popup can be easily blocked.
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I was successful in blocking it on one computer, but unsuccessful in blocking it on three others. I'm not sure why; I did the same thing on all four.

But yes, Avira or Microsoft Security Essentials are among the best two. Security Essentials has fewer false positives than Avira, while Avira catches a few more malwares. Unfortunately the Security Essentials beta is closed. I will probably switch to it on release.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/
 
kirbyrj said:
I've used Avira and Avast and they are both great free alternatives to AVG. Avast has a strange interface, but the resident shield isn't too bad. Avira has a once a day ad pop up that doesn't care what you're doing (e.g. games). I've had it pop up on me at the worst possible times. But it's a decent free alternative. I haven't tried the MS Security Essentials.
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I use Avast myself. Disable everything except for the resident shield... the interface is plain and it only scans for files as they open/in memory... and does its daily updates and full system scan. All that it needs to do.

I did a recent format/wipe/reinstall after replacing a drive in my laptop... I happened to have the AVG8 install binaries on a thumbdrive, so I installed that. I couldn't believe how naggy, bloated and annoying AVG has gotten. Back in the 6.0 days it was nice... but yuck. Left a really bad taste in my mouth. Everything took at least 3 times longer to open with AVG compared to the delay under Avast. I quickly switched back to Avast.
 
AVG is terrible, always blocking random sites, giving me so many false positives (all legitimate), and never really getting rid of viruses. People need to know about the alternatives!
 
Vermillion said:
Bing is your friend.
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:eek:

Wow. First time I've really heard of someone use a term like this other than "Google it"...

I'm still digging BING though... Much more relevant results than Yahoo. Only thing I don't like about it is Yahoo does have the news right there on the front page without having to sign into an account or anything like that. Google/Bing don't have that.
 
evilsofa said:
I was successful in blocking it on one computer, but unsuccessful in blocking it on three others. I'm not sure why; I did the same thing on all four.

But yes, Avira or Microsoft Security Essentials are among the best two. Security Essentials has fewer false positives than Avira, while Avira catches a few more malwares. Unfortunately the Security Essentials beta is closed. I will probably switch to it on release.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/
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You can still find the installer for MSE though. In fact criccio posted a link to it earlier in the thread.

TechieSooner said:
:eek:

Wow. First time I've really heard of someone use a term like this other than "Google it"...

I'm still digging BING though... Much more relevant results than Yahoo. Only thing I don't like about it is Yahoo does have the news right there on the front page without having to sign into an account or anything like that. Google/Bing don't have that.
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I'm sick of Google's crappy search and have been for a long time. Problem was there was nothing better. I much prefer the decision engine Bing uses. With Google I usually have to go down 3-4 or more links to find what I'm searching for. Bing is usually within the first two. So Bing is now my default search engine.

But that's a discussion for another thread... ;)
 
TechieSooner said:
:eek:

Wow. First time I've really heard of someone use a term like this other than "Google it"...

I'm still digging BING though... Much more relevant results than Yahoo. Only thing I don't like about it is Yahoo does have the news right there on the front page without having to sign into an account or anything like that. Google/Bing don't have that.
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Actually Google and Bing does have news front page. They just chose to give people simple search interface primarily, unlike Yahoo which gives you a search page as an afterthought.

Bing's news page is msn.com (bing is on the top of that site too), and Google has the modular igoogle.com.
 
Vermillion said:
I'm sick of Google's crappy search and have been for a long time. Problem was there was nothing better. I much prefer the decision engine Bing uses. With Google I usually have to go down 3-4 or more links to find what I'm searching for. Bing is usually within the first two. So Bing is now my default search engine.
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I pretty much concurrr.
For me, it seemed like Google's spam sites were rising rapidly as well, I didn't have that problem with Yahoo and don't have that problem with Bing.

Vermillion said:
But that's a discussion for another thread... ;)
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Possibly but this one's already run out.
AVG sucks, alternatives are listed, what next? :p
 
Also, MSN sucks balls...

"Five cutest picks", "Celebrity Secrets", "Michael Vick", "100 Pound Club"... All prevalent nonsense I don't care about. Yahoo generally sticks the national news about center of the page (or if N Korea fires a missile it's right there). MSN is more akin to a tabloid than the news.
 
CaptainRAVE said:
Will try avast I think. AVG has become too bloated.
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My tip: During install, uncheck every feature except for the resident scanner and english help files (required) if you want the least intrusive option. The skins are really bad and cringeworthy.
 
TechieSooner said:
Also, MSN sucks balls...

"Five cutest picks", "Celebrity Secrets", "Michael Vick", "100 Pound Club"... All prevalent nonsense I don't care about. Yahoo generally sticks the national news about center of the page (or if N Korea fires a missile it's right there). MSN is more akin to a tabloid than the news.
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Well MSN.com is meant to be an entertainment site for everybody and their family. Nobody wants to log into bad news everyday. You can always just use http://www.msnbc.msn.com if you want real news and Bing on top.
 
I can't believe I forgot to bash on itunes. That is the biggest piece of junk media player ever. Why the hell is it 87mb and why the hell do i have to restart my computer to install it? I wish Media Monkey could update contacts then I wouldn't have to use it for my iphone :(
 
iTunes is the parasite which it seems to be.. it just happens to be that AVG caught a social & privacy parasite instead of a pure malware one.

I use my universities free Norton Corporate, I havnt questioned it really, but I constantly wonder if there is something faster out there. My system aint bad, its probably why I dont feel it as much, but it does get hiccups that are a PITA when in the middle of a memory intensive game, like my addiction to Age of Conan.

However, I somehow get the feeling that they all have such hickups.

I have not tried AVG in years, and I have never installed Avast, so I cant compare.
------------------

Regarding Bing, to the above posters.


Bing layout and design irritates me after years of using Google's clean interface. The search page is incredibly heavy to load, with a Doctors-Office-Pamphlet-Like color scheme and a massive picture enveloping your search field, filled with details and hotbuttons akin to an advanced flickr picture opening. Dont know why they did it, its the heaviest possible thing they could have put on short of a video clip.

The search result page is absolutely cluttered. The whole left column is completely useless and redundant and should have been used to give more space to search results and their names. The results themselves are far apart, and thus fewer fit per-page than google.

Any result like a sub-forum to a forum post, shows up in Google as tabbed in, telling you that its a branch. That is entirely lacking in Bing, and would look like 2 separate websites that you'd end up clicking.

Unless you notice the obscure gray button to turn it off, your search history sits right on any search page you have up, permanently, below the already obtrusive left hand column, for any onlooker to see that you searched for Celine Dion haters or FuzzySlipperCollectors.org between, Fall 2009 WHO reports and CNN news.

In summation. Bing feels like an awkward, pseudo-artsy, cluttered, bulky, cheap attempt at reincarnating MS Search with a new wrapper, and "paraphrasing" as much of Google as they possibly can in the process.
 
The Red said:
snip
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If you don't like Bing that's fine but you're whole rant was nothing but personal preference about what it looks like.

I could give a shit what a search engine looks like as long as it finds what I want. I don't see any speed difference in the web pages or their searching. However, under Bing I'll get what I want immediately instead of scrolling down 5 links or better to find it.
 
Azhar said:
Well MSN.com is meant to be an entertainment site for everybody and their family. Nobody wants to log into bad news everyday. You can always just use http://www.msnbc.msn.com if you want real news and Bing on top.
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Meh, by default it only searches msnbc.msn.com.....


anthrex said:
I can't believe I forgot to bash on itunes. That is the biggest piece of junk media player ever. Why the hell is it 87mb and why the hell do i have to restart my computer to install it? I wish Media Monkey could update contacts then I wouldn't have to use it for my iphone :(
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Because it installs protocols, services, and other nonsense. iTunes is seriously more akin to Malware than anything else.
Remember people complaining when Microsoft installed that Firefox plugin? I see nobody complaining about Apple installing Bonjour without asking.

The Red said:
The search page is incredibly heavy to load, with a Doctors-Office-Pamphlet-Like color scheme and a massive picture enveloping your search field, filled with details and hotbuttons akin to an advanced flickr picture opening. Dont know why they did it, its the heaviest possible thing they could have put on short of a video clip.
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:rolleyes:
Their home page is about a quarter of a MB big.

If you've got an issue with that- it's time to come out of the dial up age.




After that, I just see a bunch of nit-picking from someone that's gotten entirely too used to Google.
 
iTunes can feel more like fighting a computer full of malware than a good way to enjoy music. I love the store and a few of the features but for the most part it's a major pain in the ass.

For AV I'm loving NOD32--AVG and Avira feel pretty bloated, and I never did get the popup to stay off with Avira. Then again, I didn't try very hard.
 
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