AVG and Linkscanner: Sounds as if Anti-Malware Software Acts Like Malware

Webmasters, bloggers, anyone who measures site traffic - or pays for bandwidth - should be interested in this:

• "AVG scanner blasts internet with fake traffic"
  The Register (June 13, 2008)
  • "Early last month, webmasters here at The Reg noticed an unexpected spike in our site traffic. Suddenly, we had far more readers than ever before, and they were reading at a record clip. Visits actually doubled on certain landing pages, and more than a few ho-hum stories attracted an audience worthy of a Pulitzer Prize winner. Or so it seemed.
  • "As it turns out, much of this traffic was driven by the new malware scanner from AVG Technologies...."
  • "...Webmasters deal with robot traffic and other rogue visits all the time. But this is a little different. In an effort to fool even the sneakiest malware exploits, Linkscanner does its best to imitate real user clicks - which means most webmasters are completely unaware of the problem.
  • "At the moment, there is a way of filtering AVG traffic from log files. But it's unclear whether this method would bag legitimate traffic as well. And Thompson suggests that - in the name of high security - AVG may make changes that prevent such filtering.
  • "That could destroy web analytics as we know it...."
• "Reactions to story from The Register: Sci/Tech News for the World"
  • Technorati list of related links
• "AVG Antivirus 8"
  ZDNet review (March 11, 2008)
  • "...The biggest news with AVG Anti-Virus 8 is that it includes Linkscanner, a technology that actively blocks malicious content from Web sites that may have been hijacked or otherwise compromised. Also, antivirus, antispyware, and antirootkit preventions have been combined into one product. The new drive-by download protection combined with AVG's award winning effectiveness in blocking and removing antivirus and antispyware code is tempered only by its somewhat slow performance in CNET Labs benchmark tests. While individual applications loaded fast, scan and boot times trended toward the slow end...."

I'm disappointed in what seems to have happened to AVG. I've used it, and recommended it. Now I find that it's an anti-malware program that acts like the software it's supposed to combat.

---

Updated (August 25, 2009)

I am using AVG software now: and do recommend it. Quite a lot can change in a year - particularly in computer technology and software.