AVG virus protection Causing BROWSER BLOCK - Work Around

[cornishmaid1961]

dont worry cornish it hasn't stolen your identity it is just using the same browser signature (from my very limited knowlege) it is along the lines of you being a member of xyz bank... everyone at that branch has the same sort code but not the same account number. in this case the sort code is Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1).

so basically gazza is saying anyone with that sort code is barred from using the branch as it has to many members and the "staff" cant cope with the workload (I do hope that makes sense )

Yes I know that Somerset, sorry I was only joking about the stolen identity! Just my luck to have the same bloomin' signature as that thing!

[ArtisanUK]

I've got a phone number for AVG that I pulled off the site a couple of weeks ago before they updated it, is it okay to put it on here?

Also I'm on the free version, didn't download the new one because yet again I have dial-up speed problems and am sick to death of sitting here trying to download stuff - although I thought they weren't providing anymore upgrades for the free one (which is why I noted their phone number)

Got to be honest I'm still confused as to whether the problem is with IE6 or with AVG because some people seem to be having problems if they don't have either. Am I right in presuming that the IE6/AVG is the thing that is causing the other folk to get affected.

As a side note, even this page hasn't been downloading properly for me for the last day or so and I'm getting a lot of red x boxes where the photos, menus etc should be.

[westlondoncarparts]

Artisan, What is going on is that there are a number of different standard browser 'signatures' which come off computers being used on the internet and these can be picked up by the websites being visited. The visited websites can use browser signature information for monitoring traffic to their site and for understanding which browsers are being used - and then use this information for business development and site development purposes. AVG have selected some of those standard signatures to use with their software including for IE6. When the AVG software tries to scan target websites for viruses and spyware before the user goes on to that website, it pretends to be a human searching on the internet rather than a virus company looking for problems - so that the target site is not alerted to what is going on. It does that by pretending to have standard browser signatures including one of the IE6 signatures. The big problem arises when somebody does a Google search for something. Old style protection software often worked on the basis that it would vet the files coming into a computer from a selected website, alerting the user to any problems before the computer could be infected. The new AVG software works differently and will visit all the websites that come up on the first page of Google results and check the pages out before letting the user select any of them. So with the old style software, if somebody did a Google search for eBid and selected one of the search results, there would only be one visit to eBid. Under the new AVG software, there might be 10 visits to eBid if 10 results come up on the first page of the Google search. The eBid team have identified the problem signatures that AVG are using for this process. If you happen by chance to have one of the same signatures that AVG are using, then you will find that you have been blocked by eBid. That way, the eBid site is being protected from big surges in hits from the AVG software which slow the site down and which incur additional bandwidth costs. So people who have a browser signature that is being used by AVG cannot access eBid at the present time. EBid have suggested moving to another browser. The eBid team are recommending browser change to IE7 or to the latest version of Firefox. I would presume that there is no risk of AVG changing the browser signatures they are using to include these browser versions as they have enhanced levels of protection against intrusion problems anyway. But I am not an expert on these matters so do not know. Before people upgrade, they do need to research and to understand fully the implications of the browser changes. For example, if you download Firefox, deleting the old IE might mean that you might not be able to use some of your existing Microsoft AV product because this is designed to integrate with IE. So you might need to retain IE and learn to alternate between IE and Firefox browsers depending upon what you are doing on the internet. You need also to understand if you have any old third party non-Microsoft applications that might not run correctly if you move away from IE6 or which also might need upgrading to work with the new browser. Unfortunately, I cannot find any single place on the internet that gives full chapter and verse on all of this. If there is anybody reading this who thinks that they might have potential issues arising from a browser upgrade, it would be a good idea to ensure that they have reliable system restore applications on their computer before doing any upgrades. These will enable you to restore back to original software settings prior to browser changes if something goes wrong. I am on Windows XP and the standard system restore application that comes with XP has a reputation for not always being reliable and in the past some people have been let down by it not working when they have really needed it. So it might be a good idea to get reliable system restore sorted out before trying much by way of browser changes. I have Kaspersky anti-virus software and have never been anywhere near AVG but am affected by this problem on eBid. I think I will sit it out for a week or two to see what AVG do about this. Their new software causing the problem seems to be generating enormous volumes of internet traffic which will be affecting performance and bandwidth usage for websites most affected and which will be costing some of the most affected websites hard cash because of loss of business and additional bandwidth needed. I am sure it is only a matter of time before people go legal with AVG with compensation claims so hopefully AVG will realise that they need to deal with this matter and do something about it. The problem on the internet with this new software will get much worse than it is at present because not all AVG users have downloaded the new software yet. This situation is not eBid's fault but is yet another hurdle to jump for those of us who have suffered from the lack of support for sellers eslewhere and are trying to migrate our business across to eBid.

[heatemyfather]

Artisan, What is going on is that there are a number of different standard browser 'signatures' which come off computers being used on the internet and these can be picked up by the
...
This situation is not eBid's fault but is yet another hurdle to jump for those of us who have suffered from the lack of support for sellers eslewhere and are trying to migrate our business across to eBid.

I almost died of suffocation half way through that post!


This AVG problem explains a few things, why eBid was unavailable at random times and on random pages.

Damn shame it had to be AVG that causes it, it's an otherwise excellent virus checker. What am I to advise my PC-owning friends - that they should turn off the link checker component? Would this pose any security risk to them? I can't see the benefit to the ordinary user of checking every link on a page - what exactly is it checking for and what happens when it finds it? Seems rather pointless to me and ill-conceived for the apparent trouble it causes.

Makes me glad to have a Mac

[kengillam]

Presumably this will also affect other sites

[lofty100e]

Good point Ken, if it affects the big auction site something might get done.
From what I have been told AVG is a part of Bill Gates' empire so the threat of possible legal action wouldn't really bother him (been there, got the t-shirt).

[heatemyfather]

Good point Ken, if it affects the big auction site something might get done.

Hmm, to be honest I have not noticed any reduction in speed from bigger sites, I think it's going to be mainly smaller hosts that are affected. I would expect big companies to already have large amounts of bandwidth which should be able to cope with the extra stress.

[carolkeo]

Um, I think this may be related. I am fairly new. I can access eBid via my laptop at home, but I usually use my local internet cafes, as my home set up is dial-up (which is rather expensive...)

I cannot access eBid at any of my local web cafes.

The owners tell me that the site has been blocked and they cannot change that or override the block

Carol.

Help!

[Gothicina]

Presumably this will also affect other sites

I think, how badly a site is affected depends on its size & popularity.

The really big sites probably already have the capacity to cope.

The timing (due the the large influx of new users) is probably why eBid is getting hit so hard by this as opposed to some other sites.

In the long term, if AVG do not back down, many more sites will be affected.

With the way eBid is growing I'd imagine that more servers must be getting near the top of the shopping list.

[ArtisanUK]

Thanks for taking the time and effort to make that post, Robert - much appreciated.

I read it yesterday, then read it again, then my server went down - I had to resist the urge to chuck my pc in the sea ...


Thing is, by the looks of it, this problem is affecting more people than we realised. As somebody else said in another thread, 8 of their friends can't get in ((I'm impressed that they have 8 friends) and there are other threads starting to pop up all over the place regarding it.

My simplistic way of thinking says that sites suffering this problem should turn off that signature collector thing - if it's just a stats collector, and supposedly the numbers are small, and the damn thing is distorting them anyway, then I can't see the point.
But I don't know the implications of this, plus as more and more folk sign up the new AVG8 then the problem is going to get more widespread. They didn't stop the AVG free upgrades until 25th June so everybody was hanging fire anyway and the support for it doesn't finish while sometime in December.

Anyhoo - I've got this UK phone number for AVG 0844 8941000, if anyone feels the urge to speak to a human about it. Never tried it myself and their office hours are Monday-Friday 8.30-5.

Didn't know Mr Gates owned it ...