OT: AVG Internet Security software package problem

[crb]

I bought the 3-licence package. I tried installing it on two of my computers and ran into the same problem on each.

With the AVG Firewall switched on, it is not possible to contact the email client (using Outlook). The AVG Help facility has been useless (both inbuilt and via their customer support agents). AVG now want to have access to my computer via the Internet in order to interrogate it directly themselves in order to trace the problem.

My immediate reaction was "no way" because I have commercially- sensitive data on my HDDs, not to mention all my banking and investment details.. They say that I can monitor their activity and switch it off at any time, but how do I know that whoever is doing the interrogation cannot later gain access again without my monitoring it?

Am I being paranoid do you think?. I am not suggesting that the AVG company itself would be party to any nefarious activity.

CRB

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , crb writes

Oh, come on. There are many groups far more appropriate to this question. Marking it OT doesn't excuse your laziness.

[Cash]

A silly question, but have you allowed your e-mail client access to the internet through the AVG firewall? AVG may just well be blocking it - please do not ask me how you configure AVG as I don't use that program, but others here may be able to tell you how.

Cash

[Steve Lupton]

crb wrote: > AVG now want to > have access to my computer via the Internet in order to interrogate it > directly themselves in order to trace the problem. >

How do you know they are not doing it anyway... You've installed their software which needs administrative privileges and installs some low level system hooks. There is no reason they couldn't have already inserted a back door into your machine!

Yep :)

If you can trust anyone, you should be able to trust an anti-virus vendor!

Steve

[TheOldFellow]

You need an angle grinder.

[David in Normandy]

A little paranoia regarding computer security is a good thing, but maybe AVG can be trusted. Personally I keep all personal stuff, emails, banking related details, confidential customer data etc all in a virtual encrypted (TrueCrypt) drive so I'd simply unmount that disk while third parties accessed the computer. It is also a damned good idea in case the computer gets stolen too. TrueCrypt is free by the way and has a good reputation. Maybe worth thinking about.

[geoff]

They never make mistakes (as Grimly posted elsewhere )

[dave]

I think which version is an issue (well for me it was) with avg. Prior to (I think) v8 all was well. V8, seemed to warp into what I thinl of as bloatware 0 imho of course. After trying sevetral other packages (after being very happy with avg for years) - I'm now using avast.

The above suggestion well worth a look. Under programs, look for the program in question. There (used to be) two sections to each: for local net and internet. 3 sets of tickboxes with X ? Y (or similar). If you put 6 x ?'s, avg will ask you for permisssion for each of those conditions as the occur. If any are X, then avg will block it without telling you (although it may be in the log file). hth