Anybody else having problems getting AVG 8.0 Free to update?

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Why won't mine update? I tried turning off all my firewalls and antiviruses when installing, but it didn't work. However, I did not uninstall any other antiviruses (as recommended by the AVG installation screen). Do I really need to do that? I use AntiVir, avast!, Ad-Aware (which also won't update), Spybot Search & Destroy, SpywareBlaster, SpywareGuard (which I really shouldn't be using), and COMODO Firewall Pro. I am using a dial-up connection, and whenever I tell AVG to update, the Internet connection icon in the system tray seems unresponsive. After about 2 minutes, it then tells me that the connection with the update server has failed. Do you think it could be my security settings? I have heard that there are still bugs in AVG 8.0, but is that the case here?

I don't know but I would've uninstalled the other anti virus then done a reboot before installing the new one. I was using AVG for a couple of weeks but now I'm using Avira after a programming expert on here thought it was a bit better at protecting.

You really should only use one anti-virus product at a time. If you have two they can fall over each other and both try to intercept internet traffic. In the end two is likely to give you less protection than one, due to the conflicts.

I've recently started using AVG 8 and don't really like it, especially the new feature that scans web links. With dial up it can really slow down surfing so I turned that option off. Like every other piece of software AVG is rapidly becoming bloat-ware and trying to do too many things.

AVG, ad-aware, and a decent firewall...

though I hear that AVG is cancelling their free service, as they've been "found" by the general public...

The firewall can be just the built-in XP one. It's adequate for "normal" users, although I have used the free version of Zone Alarm in the past.

I like to throw Spybot into that mix. It complements AdAware - each picking up a slightly different mix. They disagree a little on the marginal stuff. Remember to run each one a month, or so.

Also, I use Spybot to remove ALL startup stuff, including all the MS junk. The only exceptions are AVG and maybe one or two other bits I know for absolute certain I want.



PS. One problem people always have with AVG is that they expect to be able to find it at http://www.grisoft.com. There's no trace of the free version there. You have to go to http://free.grisoft.com for it.

Today I got thoroughly sick of AVG and uninstalled it. I'm fed up with it displaying several pop-ups when it's updating (It's bad programming to do that. It should only show pop-ups if it fails to update). It's downright rude of a program to demand attention when it doesn't need any. The final straw was a false positive on a program I was trying to install, and the only way to install it was to remove AVG. The ignore button doesn't do anything, neither does killing all the AVG processes.

Avast hasn't p***ed me off with pop-ups, hasn't had false positives, and has the bonus of including network file system scans in the free version, so I can check things on my file server.

PS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spybot#Malicious_clones

If you're using ISDN or Dial-up you should be particularly careful about spyware, as there is a certain type called diallers. The last thing you want is some spyware on your computer dialling up premium rate porn numbers in another country. One person whose computer I cleaned of spyware (over 300 different programs) had a phone bill of over £150 for one month, because his computer kept dialling up to a porn site in Italy. It was just a couple of hours, but with ISDN that's very expensive.