1

You shouldn't believe everything you read in the blogosphere. AVG issued a hotfix on July 8th which stopped the LinkScanner prescanning of search results.

2 As soon as it installed the LinkScanner feature I simply disabled it.  I know that many people won't be that smart, but really there's no other option for me at this point.

I could install hubby's corporate version of Norton but those people wrote the book about how to take over one's puter...

3 Right Pat - how many people actually INSTALLED the hot fix??? Apparently it's still a problem since since it brought down our servers with a DDoS.  And because Pixy is the blog admin here I think I'll take his actual experience over the news of a hot fix release, even though it seems to make you feel better.  I know - the fact that they released a hot fix should make me happy.  Silly me they've applied a bandaid to a hemorrhage and I'm ungrateful enough to not take it in the spirit it was intended.

The problem with putting out crap like this linkscanner, once it's out there - there is no going back.  You will now have all those people using it not applying the hot fix and even enabling the linkscanner because they think they should.

I was NOT appreciative of AVG's response when first confronted with the problem they caused (and will continue to cause for the foreseeable future).  Shrugging off the minor issues of keeping a web site running... all in the name of "keeping us safe".  It was a poorly thought out method with heavy ramifications.  No, no sympathy here, even if they did try to "fix it".

Pam - you are a technically literate person.  Many people simply don't know what to do even if the option is put in front of them.  They go with the default because they're afraid they'll break something if they change things.