Scott's post about Impulse reminded me of how AVG went from a good unintrusive antivirus tool to something I hate. It too had become malware by popping up ads for itself at inopportune times (not that any time is right to do this) like during a full-screen game (which would dump me back to the desktop). Someone figured out how to kill that, but nothing cures the ever-growing tentacles all over my system infrastructure. The last straw is this avgrsx.exe, a process that can't be terminated in task manager, and with good reason. All network traffic was somehow redirected through it, so it must run or there is no network connectivity at all. I found that out by blocking it in the firewall, resulting in no internet until I removed the block. I did that because I suspected that it was allowing several apps on my system to phone home, even though I specifically have them blocked in the firewall. For example, Winamp 2 was popping up a window saying an update is available every time I launched it.
I have a very simple old firewall, Kerio/TPF 2.15. I like simple. Simple can't be tricked. It blocks absolutely everything I don't specifically allow. The problem here is that in order for everything to work with AVG installed, I need to allow avgrsx.exe access to the network, and since *it* has so much control over what comes and goes, *it* nerfs the firewall by deciding what apps and other processes talk through *it*. Piece of shit!
So now I've uninstalled AVG for good. Lo and behold, Winamp no longer tells me about any updates. IE doesn't work unless I allow it TCP access (as it should be). Take this as a heads up if you use or plan to try AVG.
Any other suggestions for a free, simple AV? A passive app that I launch when I want to scan something would be ideal, not that I think anyone is making these anymore. (Dammit.)
