[UPDATE] Free AVG 8.0 released

[HAN]

For AVG fans... http://free.grisoft.com/ww.homepage

Note that AVG 8.0 ONLY supports Win 2000, XP and Vista. Win 98/98SE and ME are NOT supported!

[Broni]

...and a problem, already.
I tried to install it today, and after spending an hour, trying to solve the problem, I went back to 7.5.
I'm on Vista here.
This is what happened...
Just to be on a safe side, I created new Restore Point.
I uninstalled 7.5,, restarted computer, and went with 8.0 installation.
At first, I got a warning about another AV present on my computer.
What the heck?
I thought, maybe AVG was complaining about ThreatFire, so I stopped installation, uninstalled TF, restarted computer, and tried to install again.
Same warning.
This time, I went ahead with installation, and I had another warning about AVG not being able to initialize Window Firewall (which I don't use).
I disregarded this warning, as well, and finally AVG said, it was installed successfully.
But, when I tried to run it, I got this:
The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect
I did a lot of search. Someone suggested uninstalling Visual C++, which I did.
No dice.
Finally, I got tired of this crap, and I went back to 7.5

I may give it another shot over the weekend. I suspect, 7.5 left some leftovers, which were screwing 8.0 installation.

[HAN]

It might be worth a cruise over to the free AVG forums at Grisoft to see if anyone else is seeing Vista issues...

[Broni]

I went there, and found nothing about my problem.

[Welshjim]

Broni--Windows Installer Cleanup Utility may help clean up the bits and pieces earlier versions of programs leave
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;290301
and a new program about which I hear good things
http://www.revouninstaller.com/
I do not use AVG, so do not know if there is a special uninstall procedure. (More and more programs seem to need them these days--Symantec, Adobe, etc.) One reference is
http://www.pchell.com/virus/uninstallavg.shtml

[jdc2000]

I have seen reports of problems with the paid version of AVG 8 as well. Maybe waiting for version 8.1 might be worthwhile.

[Broni]

Thanks, Jim
When I have more time, I'll try to uninstall 7.5 again.

One reference is
http://www.pchell.com/virus/uninstallavg.shtml

Yeah, I tried Windows uninstaller, and AVG uninstaller...same thing.

I have seen reports of problems with the paid version of AVG 8 as well.

Me too, but I thought, nothing will happen to me...hehehe

[HAN]

I'm not the biggest fan of AVG but I would never deny that they normally write a solid piece of code. When I've needed to replace some other brand of antivirus that some machines struggled with, I knew I could always depend on AVG to run on pretty much any PC. So, I will very very surprised if they don't get this solved pretty quick...

[Broni]

I'v been using AVG for number of years, and I never had a single problem, but now I started to worry little bit.
AVG seems to be going in wrong direction - toward bloated software.
It's already quiet a giant - 45.5MB download, just for AV, and it keeps adding more, and more stuff.
In this version, they try to force on you some Yahoo! "Security Toolbar".
Did I ask for it?
Surely, you can opt out during installation, but only, if you do "custom" install. Regular computer users, often don't go this way.

[HAN]

Personal opinion to follow...

Hmmm... Not happy to hear about the toolbar thing. If it came with the option to add it, above and beyond the default installation, that would be ok with me. But to add it as part of the default install, that's shady at best.

As for bloat, it's a big time shame! IMO, I feel we can trace the origin of that back to a couple of the major AV players and consumer oriented personal computer magazines. (We know who they are! ) Because of this, the market has went the way of HUGE suites and the average customer seems to now believe they need one comprehensive solution. (Some balanced, non-marketing based education here would help but, it seems to me, the average customer no longer wants that education. They now want set and forget. Which enables even more bloat.) And even when one uses just the AV from one of these new versions, the programmers, for whatever reason, seem to leave tons of code from the suite in it. (AVG is not the only transgressor here. CA's successor to EZ-AV was a prime example of this. It went from lean and mean to the HUGE program it is today.)

Sorry for the rant but the bottom line is that we appear to be on a bloated anti-malware freight train that is out of control...

[Broni]

Our hope is, and has been alway the same.
New players come up all the time, and we can always dump annoying ones, and switch to new ones.

[HAN]

Here is an ongoing thread over at the free AVG forum. The addition of several new features has apparently "stirred the pot". And FWIW, AVG does not seem to grasp the fact that there is a market for just an AV...
http://forum.grisoft.cz/freeforum/re...,backpage=,sv=

[Broni]

Thanks Han...
Interesting reading.
Yesterday, I tried to install AVG 8.0 on my XP, this time. Same problem.
I made sure, I uninstalled 7.5, and got rid of any traces of it.
Still, during installation, AVG 8 complained about another AV installed on my computer.
I gave up, and reverted to ver 7.5
My friend (very computer savvy) tried it on his XP. Kept getting some registry errors. He gave up, as well.

[HAN]

More on the AVG bloat issue...

AVG Anti-Spyware and Anti-Rootkit are now only available in the AVG 8.0 suite product. http://free.grisoft.com/ww.download-...d-anti-rootkit

As I noted earlier, I wasn't the biggest AVG fan but I certainly recommended it on occasion when it seemed like the best product for the situation. It's looking more and more like I will not be able to recommend AVG, free or paid, under any circumstances. Even bloat may not be a big enough word! Too bad...

[Broni]

I hate suites. When any company starts to offer a suite, pretty soon things go wrong.
Norton was a great man, look what happened when Symantec took over...