problem My AVG FREE 2014 doesn't post the end time of a scan?

[apairofpcs]

This is more of an inconvenience than a problem.....
I'm using the antivirus program AVG FREE 2014 with great success on my two laptops and desktop, all Windows 7 based pcs. I find that when I start a scan and I Archive All to add to the activity log, the start time column has an entry but the end time column doesn't. The fastest way to see the time that a scan ended, is to Log Off. I can also restart to get the same result. This glitch also applies to an automatic scan of removable media such as a USB flash drive.

I usually put my pcs in Sleep Mode when I'm not using them, so there is rarely any need fr me to do a Log Off or a restart. Doing a Log Off forces all of my open applications to close. Without doing a Log Off, I can do numerous scans and none will indicate the end of scan time. Any ideas?

 

[Mercutio]

Don't use AVG. It's a lead balloon on your system's performance in the first place.
Consider Avast Free instead. Or Avira. Or MSE. Or absolutely nothing. Because all of those things are better options.

 

[apairofpcs]

Don't use AVG. It's a lead balloon on your system's performance in the first place.
Consider Avast Free instead. Or Avira. Or MSE. Or absolutely nothing. Because all of those things are better options.

Many a pc user has told me that any antivirus program slows down a pc. I tried all those you mentioned. Although a virus never had a chance to deliver it's dastardly payload, the programs you mentioned allowed spyware / malware to infiltrate my pcs with their annoying false warnings about having countless viruses, when I didn't have any. In fact, I even paid for a year of PC Tool's Spyware Doctor, and this also gave me plenty of trouble by NOT doing it's job. I eventually ended up with AVG. AVG has always blocked viruses before my eyes. It has never allowed spyware / malware to infiltrate my pcs. It's easy to use. It's more user friendly than one would expect from always free software. I have nothing bad to say about it....besides the complaint that lead to this thread.

Regarding it's negative effect on system performance, I'm not as concerned with this usually important characteristic, as I'm concerned with having my pcs protected. In fact, my settings allow a greater level of scanning than the default settings. My choices would slow down any pc. As part of my study to determine why my desktop pc froze, I disabled AVG for a short time after I disabled my ethernet adapter to stay clear of the internet. The pc ran faster without AVG, but not enough to make me switch AV programs or not use one altogether. I've been thinking of trying MS Security Essentials, since I never used it before. I don't want to be narrow-minded, so I suppose I should install it and see what it does for me. Considering that AVG has blocked viruses that it detected on what we would consider to be "clean" sites, there is no way that I'm not going to use NO form of AV software.

 

[apairofpcs]

I failed to exclude MSSE from the AV programs I've already used. I'll give it a shot!

 

[apairofpcs]

Oops, another "brain fart." I meant "there is no way that I'm going to use NO form of AV software."

 

[Mercutio]

You appear to have some fundamental misconceptions about what security software can or should be doing.

Here's the thing:

Anti-virus applications are supposed to prevent VIRUSES. Malware, regardless of its specific function, fails to meet the crucial definition of "virus" since it does not attempt to duplicate or spread to other files or computers. As such, it's not the job of an anti-virus application to prevent malware installation. All-in-one security applications may make claims that they prevent malware, but malware blocking as such is almost never part of a stand-alone antivirus application. Also, and this may or may not come as a shock to you, most all-in-one security applications tend to be extremely bad at their job.

Furthermore, there's no such thing as real-time scanning for "malware-like" behavior. Malware applications are identified by a well-known fingerprint of some sort, not because of anything they might be doing once they're actually encountered by a computer. Malware very often will, from the computer's standpoint, appear to be doing something completely legitimate, like configure a browser toolbar or pass content through a web proxy. That browser toolbar may force all your attempts to search on to SexyPokerSearch.com and the web proxy might prevent all attempts to communicate with google.com, but as far as your computer is concerned, you ASKED for those things by virtue of allowing the software installation.

The proper way to prevent malware installation is to install software that can either disallow the installation of specific applications, such as Spybot Search and Destroy or Spyware Blaster, or which blocks communication with suspect internet sites or services in the first place, something that's most effectively done using ad- and script-blocking in your web browser. Even if you're using an all-in-one security product, I promise that's all it's really doing to prevent malware installation, because that's all that can really be done.

In any case, AVG is in my estimation a poor choice for an antivirus application. I uninstall it on sight. MSSE isn't very good either, but at least it isn't a terrible resource hog. If you are going to rely on it, do please be aware that some versions provide only malware blocking functions while others offer both malware protection and antivirus. You should probably research which one you'd be getting for your version of Windows.

 

[ddrueding]

In case you were wondering. Merc really nailed it with that last post. The best AV can do it block viruses it already knows about and possibly ask "are you sure?" on Malware. Running without is not as crazy as it may sound; I would take a slightly educated user running Firefox and no AV over an idiot on IE, with every AV app in the world, all day.

 

[apairofpcs]

You appear to have some fundamental misconceptions about what security software can or should be doing.

Here's the thing:

Anti-virus applications are supposed to prevent VIRUSES. Malware, regardless of its specific function, fails to meet the crucial definition of "virus", since it does not attempt to duplicate or spread to other files or computers. As such, it's not the job of an anti-virus application to prevent malware installation. All-in-one security applications may make claims that they prevent malware, but malware blocking as such is almost never part of a stand-alone antivirus application. Also, and this may or may not come as a shock to you, most all-in-one security applications tend to be extremely bad at their job.

Furthermore, there's no such thing as real-time scanning for "malware-like" behavior. Malware applications are identified by a well-known fingerprint of some sort, not because of anything they might be doing once they're actually encountered by a computer. Malware very often will, from the computer's standpoint, appear to be doing something completely legitimate, like configure a browser toolbar or pass content through a web proxy. That browser toolbar may force all your attempts to search on to SexyPokerSearch.com and the web proxy might prevent all attempts to communicate with google.com, but as far as your computer is concerned, you ASKED for those things by virtue of allowing the software installation.

The proper way to prevent malware installation is to install software that can either disallow the installation of specific applications, such as Spybot Search and Destroy or Spyware Blaster, or which blocks communication with suspect internet sites or services in the first place, something that's most effectively done using ad- and script-blocking in your web browser. Even if you're using an all-in-one security product, I promise that's all it's really doing to prevent malware installation, because that's all that can really be done.

In any case, AVG is in my estimation a poor choice for an antivirus application. I uninstall it on sight. MSSE isn't very good either, but at least it isn't a terrible resource hog. If you are going to rely on it, do please be aware that some versions provide only malware blocking functions while others offer both malware protection and antivirus. You should probably research which one you'd be getting for your version of Windows.

Since the only theme I hear from you regarding why NOT to use AVG is it's excessive use of memory, and I'm fine with this because I don't open many applications at the same time, I'm going to depend on it for it's great track record as an antivirus program. I will download and install Spybot Search and Destroy as you suggested, because I used it in the past for a short period of time. It may have been at the time I used PC Tool's Spyware Doctor, which I'm sure also had it's antivirus component. I wouldn't have paid for a spyware blocking / removal program, unless it had antivirus protection as well.

As far as my use of AVG, I manually check for updates several times a day, especially before I open Thunderbird for emails. Getting the latest updates makes sense to me, just before I do a full system scan of all my drives, or just of the boot drive. As for what AVG finds when a scan is complete, nothing on the desktop, my most used pc, nothing on my Lenovo laptop and anywhere from 1 to 3 threats that happen to be nothing more than tracking cookies on my Toshiba laptop. They get sent to the Virus Vault for isolation, and I empty the virus vault immediately. If you believed that AVG wasn't taking care of viruses to the best of it's abilities because I configured it to check for updates only once a day, this is not how I use AVG. Could this be why a scan never detects a virus? I admit that AVG is NOT an anti-malware program as well being an AV program. This is why I'll install Spybot. I realize that legitimate installations sometimes install malware to make a buck, usually not giving us the option to permit this action. This is why Spybot will do me good. I use the latest version of Firefox, so I'll check it's Options section for it's ability to block ads and scripts.

In closing, do you still have a problem with me using AVG for antivirus protection and Spybot Search and Destroy for malware / spyware installation prevention and removal after such an unwanted program has been installed? By the way, isn't there anybody out there who can find a solution to the problem I'm having with AVG? All the education is great, but I plan on using AVG and I'd like my problem to end. So far, I've seen nobody except you Mercutio who disapproves of AVG. I would add that despite your fatwah on Western Digital drives, my two SATA drives and one PATA drive are the quietest and most reliable ones I've owned. I like AVG and WD. You dislike both of them. My point is that I've had good luck with both manufacturers, and you have not. Without a doubt, your comments have taught me a lot. Let's see what AVG missed when Spybot does it's first complete scan.....

 

[apairofpcs]

In case you were wondering. Merc really nailed it with that last post. The best AV can do is block viruses it already knows about and possibly ask "are you sure?" on Malware. Running without it is not as crazy as it may sound; I would take a slightly educated user running Firefox and no AV over an idiot on IE, with every AV app in the world, all day.

To repeat what I wrote in my last post, which is valid as a response to your post, I never check emails or do a scan without first checking for virus definitions and program file updates. This is the very least I can do to make sure AVG has the latest information to keep me safe. Of course, between the last update and the time I do a scan, a virus may have been discovered by an AVG user and didn't reach their lab in time to add to the virus definitions list. Nobody can do anything about this. Avira, Avast and MSSE operate the same way. We keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.

I'm so happy I use Firefox, and that I'm not one of those idiot IE users who have installed a slew of "safe computing" programs. OK, so I love AVG. This is no crime, the last time I checked. By the way, my ONLY "safe computing" program on all three pcs is AVG. Tomorrow, Spybot will be added to the desktop pc as an experiment. If I'm happy with it, each laptop will benefit from it as well.

Does anybody besides me use AVG? If so, are you afraid to "confess"? For those who confess to using it, does anybody have the same missing end of scan time stamp as I?

 

[Chewy509]

Any ideas?

Have you contacted AVG Technical support regarding your issues?

I haven't used AVG for over 8 years, dropped it when memory/CPU resources requirements went silly there for a while. (It was at the same time, they introduced the safe-link scan in IE/Firefox that would download and scan content *before* you clicked on the link - that made browsing a little hard on dial-up, not to mention used bandwidth downloading stuff you didn't want).

PS. My wife's laptop is using F-Secure, and my two systems (desktop and netbook) don't have AV installed...

 

[ddrueding]

I don't see any anti-AVG conspiracy here. I don't use AVAST or MSE or any of the others either. If a user insists on AV they get NOD32. But it has been years since I've seen any coloration between machines with AV installed and machines that have viruses. I'm completely comfortable deploying machines in the enterprise with no AV at all.

This wasn't always the case; years ago if a machine had a virus I could virtually guarantee that it had Norton or McAfee installed (likely expired, but that did not decrease the efficacy).

These days when someone brings me a PC that "seems slow" the first thing I do is uninstall the AV and then start removing things from start-up.

 

[apairofpcs]

Have you contacted AVG Technical support regarding your issue?

I haven't used AVG for over 8 years, dropped it when memory/CPU resources requirements went silly there for a while. (It was at the same time, they introduced the safe-link scan in IE/Firefox that would download and scan content *before* you clicked on the link - that made browsing a little hard on dial-up, not to mention used bandwidth downloading stuff you didn't want).

PS. My wife's laptop is using F-Secure, and my two systems (desktop and netbook) don't have AV installed...

No, I haven't contacted AVG technical support, because when I contact most companies that provide a service or product and I make a complaint, the first thing they do is "attempt" to blame it on some other component in the system. But since I'm not making any progress here on the forum, I'll contact AVG.

I don't remember if I was using AVG 8 years ago, although I was using Firefox at that time. I was not knowledgeable about AV programs at that time, trying to find an ideal one.

I'm still shaking my head in disbelief, as I consistently read that most of you don't have any AV program on your pcs. I know that my AVG blocks viruses before they can deliver a payload, so what do you people have hiding in your pcs with NO AV protection? How do you know that you don't have a threat that's waiting for the right time to wreak havoc? It sounds like you're daring a virus to strike.

 

[apairofpcs]

I don't see any anti-AVG conspiracy here. I don't use AVAST or MSE or any of the others either. If a user insists on AV they get NOD32. But it has been years since I've seen any coloration between machines with AV installed and machines that have viruses. I'm completely comfortable deploying machines in the enterprise with no AV at all.

This wasn't always the case; years ago if a machine had a virus I could virtually guarantee that it had Norton or McAfee installed (likely expired, but that did not decrease the efficacy).

These days when someone brings me a PC that "seems slow" the first thing I do is uninstall the AV and then start removing things from start-up.

No anti-AVG conspiracy, huh? OK, then how about I call it an "anti-AV program conspiracy", instead? I found NOD32 on CNET, so I'll read the review as I did on AVG FREE 2014. I based my decision to use AVG on both the CNET Editors' review and the Publisher's description, although both may be biased. However, the only review that counts is my experience with it, and that's good enough for me. Until it does me wrong, I'm going to keep using AVG.

Why not do the simple task first, by unchecking one box at a time in MSconfig, restarting each time and evaluating the pc's performance as a result? Of course, my "recommendation" is based on the believe that every pc needs AV protection, and that eventually you'll need to reinstall the one you uninstalled or install a different one. How many times have you found that ONLY the AV program has caused the "seems slow" symptom, without removing any other program using MSconfig?

I have a question for all of you anti-AVG folks. If a pc has a goodly amount of memory, would you still feel strongly about not using AVG because it's a memory hog even though there's enough memory in the pc to feed it and also feed all the other programs? What other complaints do you have about AVG, or about all AV programs for that matter?

 

[Chewy509]

I'm still shaking my head in disbelief, as I consistently read that most of you don't have any AV program on your pcs.

While I can't speak for others, my main desktop runs Solaris 11.1 and my netbook runs Arch Linux (32bit). Both of these systems in their default configurations have a very-very small attack surface... I also run Firefox with NoScript, AdBlock and Ghostery. The only plugin for Firefox I have installed is Adobe Flash (and flash is only set to run if and only if I allow it manually for each flash object). These two together, means there are very-very few instances of malware that are capable of actually getting past this setup... (I also have Java installed, but the browser plugins have been removed).

And as per good practice, my everyday user accounts don't have root (or even sudo) privileges... so any instance of malware can't be installed globally when running in my default mode.... and my home partitions are mounted "noexec" when means anything that is marked an executable can't actually be run from my home partition...

About the only thing I need to worry about are attacks directly against the browser, which AdBlock and NoScript help lessen the threat from that respect... (and the attacks need to target the Solaris 11.1 version of Firefox, and the Linux 32bit version)...

Also, Solaris 11.1 uses ALSR and NX enabled by default for all applications, which makes attacking Solaris applications even harder... And AFAIK there are very-very few exploits against Solaris 11 available in the wild, not to mention the amount of malware that works in that environment, well, I could count on 1 hand even if I contacted a few people in the appropriate markets...

I could also go extreme, and have complete hash lists (both MD5 and SHA1) of all executables/libraries to confirm that none of these files have been edited (and also to track new/deleted files) as well... but for me, that seems a little overkill due to the other risk mitigation factors...

 

[Handruin]

I don't see any anti-AVG conspiracy here. I don't use AVAST or MSE or any of the others either. If a user insists on AV they get NOD32. But it has been years since I've seen any coloration between machines with AV installed and machines that have viruses. I'm completely comfortable deploying machines in the enterprise with no AV at all.

This wasn't always the case; years ago if a machine had a virus I could virtually guarantee that it had Norton or McAfee installed (likely expired, but that did not decrease the efficacy).

These days when someone brings me a PC that "seems slow" the first thing I do is uninstall the AV and then start removing things from start-up.

ddrueding's thoughts on this are much the same as my opinion. I don't run an AV tool on my personal setups. If I'm helping someone who wants an AV solution, I recommend them to buy a license for NOD32.

...
I'm still shaking my head in disbelief, as I consistently read that most of you don't have any AV program on your pcs. I know that my AVG blocks viruses before they can deliver a payload, so what do you people have hiding in your pcs with NO AV protection? How do you know that you don't have a threat that's waiting for the right time to wreak havoc? It sounds like you're daring a virus to strike.

I don't run an active AV tool/suite on my machine but from time to time I've either installed one or scanned my system to verify everything is still fine. I'm not worried about contracting a virus as I feel confident enough in my usage and habits that I'm able to contain or mitigate risk in other means where an AV tool isn't really needed. In rare situations where I need a questionable piece of software run, I use a virtualized system that's isolated from the rest of my environment. In that machine would be an AV install to help mitigate the risk.

No anti-AVG conspiracy, huh? OK, then how about I call it an "anti-AV program conspiracy", instead? I found NOD32 on CNET, so I'll read the review as I did on AVG FREE 2014. I based my decision to use AVG on both the CNET Editors' review and the Publisher's description, although both may be biased. However, the only review that counts is my experience with it, and that's good enough for me. Until it does me wrong, I'm going to keep using AVG.

Why not do the simple task first, by unchecking one box at a time in MSconfig, restarting each time and evaluating the pc's performance as a result? Of course, my "recommendation" is based on the believe that every pc needs AV protection, and that eventually you'll need to reinstall the one you uninstalled or install a different one. How many times have you found that ONLY the AV program has caused the "seems slow" symptom, without removing any other program using MSconfig?

I have a question for all of you anti-AVG folks. If a pc has a goodly amount of memory, would you still feel strongly about not using AVG because it's a memory hog even though there's enough memory in the pc to feed it and also feed all the other programs? What other complaints do you have about AVG, or about all AV programs for that matter?

I don't really see a conspiracy. I simply don't care to run one but if you want to and it makes you feel safer/more secure, please feel free. I'm more of the opinion that people should take more care in learning about their computer and understanding the fundamentals of how to refrain from habits or actions that put them at more risk in getting a virus than to spend money or time on an AV tool. People with AV tools are not immune to a virus...so you're still better off learning how to avoid them in the first place.

You've asked the question "How many times have you found that ONLY the AV program has caused the "seems slow" symptom"...my answer is way too many. At work I'm forced to use McAfee corporate AV and over the 13+ years I've been here, I've had to wait a significant amount of time with McAfee trying to help "protect" me while it scans Java code and utilities. In a corporate environment working on large enterprise hardware, it's very likely you'll find that the management tools which allow you to manage a SAN switch, or a storage array, or a managed blade system are all built with a Java app. Opening these apps are painfully slow as I watch McAfee suck through the code using only a single thread/core out of the 8 that are on my system. Ok, so maybe this isn't common for many people who don't deal with enterprise java app utilities so let me move onto Java development. This is something I do regularly now in my position on the team. McAfee wastes time there as it slows my dev environment down and launching/debugging code, etc gets tiresome that I have to wait on my AV tool to do its work...slowly. This has improved a bit now that my main system was upgraded to a faster processor and an SSD but it's still not as good as it could be. You asked for specifics on where an AV tool is notably slower and this is where I see it for most of my day on a computer. I'm not the only one in the company who has complained about the AV tools...it's consistent with other team members.

The amount of memory has never been a concern with respect to the AV software. The concern has been its lack of performance on the CPU, specifically with no ability to make use of multiple threads/cores. It's pathetic that they've not been able to improve on this in all the years they've been around and all the years multi-core CPUs have been around.

 

[timwhit]

I don't run AV either, but all my systems are running Linux.

Doug, if you have admin rights, I'd just disable the McAfee services. That's what I did at my last job where corporate Norton was installed. Doing software development with AV running is a nightmare.

 

[mangyDOG]

Interesting read, with a fair amount of AVG bashing

For those that haven't used AVG for eight years, it may be time to give it another go. Excluding McAfee and any norton product which are terrible beyond belief (for those that haven't seen the John McAfee video check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg)

I use AVG Internet Security (2013 business edition or 2014 personal edition) on all my computers, I find it has no noticeable impact on performance. I am not saying that it is the best AV software available, but it certainly works well and the firewall is excellent. If you are installing AVG, I recommend a custom install, don't install the "gadget" (Vista & 7 only) or the PC performance tools, I also don't install any of the safe search stuff and the AVG toolbar. (minimal interface on browsers is the way to go, a pox on all add-on toolbars).

In terms of scan performance AVG has one big advantage over every other AV program I have tried (including Trend, Vipre, Webroot, Panda, Avira, Kaspersky), when set to "fast" scan (use all available system resources) it will use all available CPU cores to scan a drive. I have a Dual Xeon quadcore workstation that I use for virus scanning client hard-drives, and when scanning an SSD, AVG is able to max out all eight cores, it finishes its complete drive scan significantly faster than any of the other AV programs which will only max out one core.

cheers,
mangyDOG.

 

[ddrueding]

To paraphrase:

I use AVG Internet Security (2013 business edition or 2014 personal edition) on all my computers, I find it has no noticeable impact on performance. I am not saying that it is the best AV software available, but it certainly works well and the firewall is excellent.

This guy has captured my attention...

If you are installing AVG, I recommend a custom install, don't install the "gadget" (Vista & 7 only) or the PC performance tools, I also don't install any of the safe search stuff and the AVG toolbar. (minimal interface on browsers is the way to go, a pox on all add-on toolbars).

...he has lost me.


I hate "feature"-ridden crap. That is not something I can explain to my clients. "It sucks unless you jump through all these hoops" can be shortened to the first two words.

 

[Mercutio]

I haven't USED it recently, but I certainly have removed 2013 and 2014 from quite a few machines. AVG has really followed the same pattern as other heavyweight AV products in terms of performance impedance, and for all of that it certainly doesn't provide any better protection than any other antivirus application. The main difference I see is in the newness of the machines that are being described as slow with AVG installed.

Of course, the other dirty little secret is that no antivirus application actually works as well as we'd like them to. They can't read minds and stop malware installs, and the one thing they genuinely NEED to be useful for stopping viruses, heuristic detection, is either completely ineffective or so god-awful paranoid that we wind up ignoring it.

 

[Mercutio]

Interesting link regarding security product efficacy that was posted on Slashdot today.
Note that the linked document only seems to discuss malware prevention; I can't seem to find any verbiage that suggests the author is drawing a distinction between viruses and malware.