AVG Blogs | AVG Free Edition

Slow browsing an issue, running Zonealarm?

One of the development team have just told me about an issue for some users that are running AVG AntiVirus Free Edition V9 and ZoneAlarm's free firewall. You may be experiencing a slow down in browsing speed when using Internet Explorer.

The good news is that ZoneAlarm have understood this is a bug in their software and have committed to fix it, the current release date is expected to be by the end of March.

What can you do to get around this issue now?

Temporarily change firewall, you can find a few free offerings listed at CNET's download.com

I have sorted this link for you by editors rating so you can see which CNET think is the best, hope this helps!

£60m bank fraud – don’t let it happen to you!

Picture credit covilha on flickr

I have just read a press release from the UK Card Association about online banking fraud, which is on the increase. The following is taken from the press release which you can find here

Online banking losses totalled £59.7 million in 2009 – a 14 per cent rise on the 2008 figure. This increase is largely due to criminals using more sophisticated methods to target online banking customers through malware, which targets vulnerabilities in customers’ PCs, rather than the banks’ own systems which are more difficult to attack.

The AVG free product protects you from malware attacks so there is no excuse for not having protection from these types of scams? With AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition loaded you still need to follow some guidelines to keep yourself safe:

• Only access Internet banking by typing the bank's address into your web browser.
• Keep passwords and PINs safe
• Do not answer or respond to unsolicited emails asking you to disclose personal details or card numbers..
• Check to a locked padlock or unbroken key in the bottom right of your browser window before accessing the bank site.
• Never leave your computer unattended when logged in to Internet banking.
• Ensure that you log-out properly when you have finished banking online.
• Install and learn how to use a personal firewall, there is one included in AVG Internet Security, click here for more info .
• Download the latest security updates (or patches) for your web browser and operating system.

Stay safe online and encourage your friends and family to be safe by suggesting that they get AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition loaded on their PC.

A good endorsement!

One of the greatest things that can happen in life is when people pay you a compliment without any prompting, for a company it’s an endorsement of their services or products. I have just been sent a link by one of the AVG community of users that I think makes interesting reading, see below for a short extract:

According to Brent Bartlett, CEO of Netwise Media, Standard Bank is currently advising their clients to download the free AVG program for their anti-virus purposes.

To be fair to standard bank the issue was not with their web site, the following paragraph from the article clarifies this

Standard Bank however revealed that the Trojan antivirus was an “incorrect detection” on Kaspersky’s part adding that “It appears the Kaspersky definitions contain an entry that falsely identifies legitimate functionality as malicious”

Link to the original article on MyBroadBand

Allowing that the statement from Brent Bartlett in this article is true then it shows the high regard that people have for our products and the trust that they put in our free product. This is something we value and hope that you will spread this great endorsement of our technology.

False positives of this nature are the nightmare of any AV company and we are in a good position because of all of you. Being the most widely distributed and used free AV product in the world means that people are proactive with us to make sure that our users do not encounter this type on inconvenience.

· Help us to help you!

If you think there is a web page false positive in AVG’s product, then you can report it here Click Here for Page Rating , this will benefit the entire 110m+ AVG Community

Scan whenever you want!

I have noticed lots of people making comments in blogs and forums about the weekly scheduled scan that takes place when you are running AVG Free.

Did you know that you can change the time of the scan so that it takes place when you are not using the computer (it does, of course, still need to be tuned on!).

How to change the scan time:

- Open the user interface (double click the AVG logo in the system tray)

- Click on the link to the left “Computer scanner”

- See down the bottom “Manage Scheduled Scans”

- The edit the scheduled scan to a time you would like it to happen

You can set the scan to happen at a more convenient time, such as lunch time or when you know the computer will be on but not in use. For instance,  if you always have dinner at 6, then set the scan time to that time so it does not interrupt or slow down your computer when you need it.

One of the options is to set the scan to “computer start-up.” This can be a great option for those of you that are happy to switch on and walk away while it scans. There are lots of choices on this screen so take a moment to select one that works for you.

Finally, there an advanced option that you could consider. Click the tab “how to scan” and there is a bar that allows you to set the scan process priority. If you intend to do a scan without working on the machine at the same time, then set this to “fast;” if you will be working on the machine, you can set this to “slow” so that the scan does not get priority and affect your computer’s speed or performance.

Making your USB memory stick safe!

I have just read our CTO’s blog regarding a possible USB attack that struck in Manchester, UK, infecting the Greater Manchester Police. This caused the GMP to be disconnected  from the Police National Computer which is used to check names, criminal records and suspect vehicles against the national database. It is believed the virus may have been introduced through the unauthorised use of a memory stick.

The moral of this story is that you should never let your guard down. What should you do when introducing a memory stick to your computer, you have 2 options:

Make checking of removable devices automatic with AVG

1. Open the AVG user interface
2. Select “Tools” from the menu bar at the top and open “Advanced Settings”
3. On the left menu click on “Scans” and then “Removable Device Scan”
4. Enable the “Removable Device Scan”

Or run a scan manually before accessing any of the files, to do this:

1. Open my computer
2. Insert the memory stick
3. Right click on it
4. Scan with AVG Free

You can see more on the police story at http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk

Tony Anscombe

Picture Credit – dyrk

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What does FREE mean to you?

I want to share with you an interesting part of a book that I am reading, FREE - The future of a radical price by Chris Anderson. The following is an extract from the book:

Why do people think "free" means diminished quality in on instance, and not in another? It turns out that our feelings about "free" are relative, not absolute. If something used to cost money and now doesn't, we tend to correlate that with a decline in quality. But if something never cost money, we don't feel the same way. A free bagel is probably stale, but free ketchup in a restaurant is fine. Nobody thinks that Google is an inferior search engine because it doesn't charge.

How does this relate to AVG and what you think about us, or how would we like you to think about us?

Our free product is really free, the features we deliver in the free product are in no way diminished quality like the bagel, consider AVG Free to be the ketchup. Security should be viewed like your front door, my door has two locks, an alarm and a chain. The door is locked when just one lock on the door is engaged, the other locks on my door are enhanced levels of security that I choose to add as additional features, many people have just a single lock and the level of security this provides them is enough to satisfy their requirements.

AVG Free is the first lock and provides the security against viruses and spyware on the front door of your computer. So the first lock really is free and it's up to each and every user to choose if they want to add additional security measures, just as it is with their front door.

You can download AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition from http://free.avg.com

Picture credit to William Crouch on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/wcouch/2292667019/

Tony Anscombe

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Welcome to my first post in the AVG Free blog!

Having just released the information that we now have over 110 million active users this means we have more users than the entire population of the UK and Spain combined!

Why is the large AVG user base important to you?

You are the AVG community and you're all helping each other!

The most prominent you are doing this is through the collection of malware data and infected web sites and communicating back to us. This helps us to provide real-time protection at a level that most other security vendors can only dream of. By using our product and sharing data with us you are helping to secure the global community of AVG users worldwide, so feel good about the contribution you’re making to secure the Internet.

I want this blog to become a useful source of information about the threats and issues that should concern each and every one of us that make up the global internet community. In plain speaking words over the next few weeks I hope to address some of the common issues that many of us encounter.

Tony Anscombe

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