The installation wizard of AVG has been updated and you no longer need to run fancy command lines to install without Link Scanner or remove it.
1. Download the newest build of AVG from free.grisoft.com
2. Run the installation.
3. Choose ‘Custom installation’. If you already have AVG installed, it will ask what setup type you want to perform… Choose “Add or remove components.”
4. Hit Next twice.
5. Uncheck AVG Search-Shield.
6. Finish the installation Wizard by clicking Next until Finish.
source: avg faq
If you like to install your programs in command line:
c:\avg_free_stf_*.exe /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSurf /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSearch
Besides how one may feel about the programs performance on their computer, webmasters have also been experiencing issues. What I didn’t think about was all the times AVG is checking every website in search results and generating a lot of hits to web servers.
AVG has made an official response:
As of this date, Search-Shield will no longer scan each search result online for new exploits, which was causing the spikes that web masters addressed with us.
[…] AVG still offers full protection against potential exploits through the LinkScanner Active Surf-Shield [….], which checks every page for malicious content as it is visited but before it is opened.
We’d like to thank the web community for bringing these challenges to our attention, as building community trust and protecting all of our users is critical to us.
3 replies on “Remove AVG LinkScanner Search-Shield update”
AVG has already responded to resolve this issue. The full response can be seen at http://www.avg.com.au/index.cfm?section=news&feature=104
An updated version of AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 8.0 is already available, see http://www.avgfree.com.au. The Search-Shield component of LinkScanner has been modified to only notify users of malicious sites. The equivalent modification to the the AVG 8.0 commercial products will be rolled out on 9th July 2008.
Once the updated version has been rolled out to all AVG 8.0 users the issue will be resolved.
As of this date, Search-Shield will no longer scan each search result online for new exploits, which was causing the spikes that web masters addressed with us.
However, it is important to note that AVG still offers full protection against potential exploits through the LinkScanner Active Surf-Shield component of our product, which checks every page for malicious content as it is visited but before it is opened.
We’d like to thank the web community for bringing these challenges to our attention, as building community trust and protecting all of our users is critical to us.
Best Regards, Lloyd Borrett
Marketing Manager, AVG (AU/NZ)
One problem, it is a FEATURE that you should still give users an option to disable in ways other than the command line install. My machine was brought to a crawl and I had to uninstall the product in order to get my machine back operational.
Here is what I ended up having to do
.\avg_free_stf_en_8_138a1332.exe /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSurf /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSearch /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_HttpScanner /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_Firewall