I first installed AVG anti-virus way back when I was using Windows 95, McAfee came with the machine and I used that for a while but the machine used to lockup quite regularly. AVG was a breath of fresh air, quicker and much more solid than McAfee.
That was more than a decade ago now and I have used AVG (both free and paid editions) on several machines since, and I have recommended it to many friends and colleagues. But no more; AVG (or specifically the AVG Toolbar) has become the malware that it is supposed to be protecting me from.
Malware, short for malicious software, is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner’s informed consent.
Now I know that the AVG toolbar isn’t designed to damage my computer but you have to be pretty alert to stop it inflitrating your browser and making it behave the way AVG wants rather than the way you want. When you install AVG it will install the toolbar AND make Yahoo your default search engine unless you deselect the appropriate boxes on a fairly cluttered screen, this is annoying but sadly not uncommon, Java tries to install the Yahoo toolbar every time it installs an update.
Now this is annoying enough but at least you can hide the AVG toolbar using the View/Toolbars option in your browser. But No! AVG will reinstate itself after a week, you have to use the AVG options (on the AVG toolbar) to stop it coming back every week.
Another, even more annoying, feature is that AVG will set and keep Yahoo as the search provider for your browser. Now most modern browsers let you set a default search provider but also select from a list for specific searches. I use Google as my default provider but I have about 8 others which I use from time to time, including Yahoo. What AVG does is set Yahoo as the default search provider, and also make it impossible to change to any other search engine.
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- Getting to the AVG toolbar options
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- The AVG Toolbar Advanced Options screen
To change these unacceptable behaviours you have to change the Advanced Options for the AVG toolbar. To do this you need to be displaying it, then select the drop down list just to the right of the AVG logo on the left (before the Yahoo search box).
Then select the Advanced Options tab and you will see a whole list of options, all of which should be deselected. You can then save the changes, go to the View/Toolbars option for your browser and hide the AVG toobar for ever (or until a future update undoes your work).
I have chosen to uninstall AVG altogether and install new anti-virus software from a (so far) better behaved provider. I will be installing the free version of Avira anti-virus. I have been using Avira for a few months now on one of my PCs and it seems very good; lean, quick and well behaved, just what AVG used to be. The free edition will nag you briefly to upgrade once per day which I think is fair enough, it is certainly worth paying for and it isn’t expensive.
I presume that Yahoo (which I think is a good search engine) has paid Grisoft (AVG) to include these features in their software. I hope they have paid them enough to compensate them for the customers they will lose because of it. They won’t lose much when I uninstall AVG free from my family PC, but I won’t be renewing the paid subscription for my work PCs either.
Tags: Anti Virus, Browsers, malware, Software
just came across this looking for information about this avg tool bar, and thank you, your blog here was all the information i was looking for:) does avira still work well for you?
katharine-
Glad you found it useful.
Yes; I am still using Avira, pro version on this PC and free version on the family PC. I am very happy with it.
Hey there cotsweb! Just figured I’d say hello… I recently uninstalled AVG also; it is adware & I tried out the toolbar (just to be fair), but I wasn’t feeling it. I’ve been trying to avoid Yahoo! toolbar from being installed on my computers for some time now! How annoying!
Just a thought, have you ever done a review for AppGuard? I would be interested to know what you think about it. (I have been trying to find a free alternative to it but so far no luck. Thanks!
Sorry; I haven’t used AppGuard so I can’t comment on it.
Awesome! Thanks! I couldn’t work out how to do this. Thanks!
AVG has become such nefarious malwaare, I’ll have to look into some of those alternatives.
Thank you so much. This information on how to get rid of AVG making Yahoo my default search engine was excellent. Thanks so much for the help. I am now back to google and a happy camper!
I am using AVG free version on my computer and it has continually reset my toolbar to AVG and my homepage. Thanks for the heads up on this program. They need to learn to play friendly with others :0). Microsoft has certainly gotten fined for forcing their program; hopefully AVG will too. Just to become what they should be; friendly.
Hi Cotsweb — you live in a nice place. I have an AVG question; though I know you uninstalled it, you might somehow know the answer. I just downloaded AVG 10. When I did that, it dismantled a feature of Windows 7 I like, which is that in 7 when you place the cursor over a toolbar icon, it shows you a miniature version of the page that you’d come to if you clicked on it (or in Word, if you have multiple files open, it will display all the open pages in miniature form). Now it just shows a less descriptive version — like the title of the docs in Word instead of an image of them. I can’t System Restore for reasons too complicated to mention here. Any way you know of where I can change this AVG behavior? TIA — Ken Chowder
Hi Ken,
Sorry I can’t help you with this, I haven’t used AVG for a year or so now and never on Windows 7.
We are currently using Avira and Panda and both seem to be working ok without causing too many problems with day to day operation of the computers.
As I said in my original article, my solution would be to uninstall AVG and try a different anti-virus package.
Hi Cotsweb,
Yes, I used to use AVG, for many years – until they brought out iirc v8.0, with a popup (when part of the reason I’d used AVG was no popups!) making it appear that there was no more free version. It fooled my sister – who’d been using AVG on my recommendation; she bought the full version, thinking she had no choice (as the popup was clearly designed to do). I got her to cancel the purchase and bought a NOD32 license for me, her and our dad, for 2 years. By the time that was up I’d figured Avira Antivir free was good enough so didn’t renew. However, now Avira – as I’m sure you know – have squandered the trust they’d previously earned, with the Ask toolbar and some registry booster they used to describe as malware (scareware?). I followed the widely publicised instructions for stopping the nag to install the Ask toolbar (on XP) only to find it came up again in other – non-administrative – profiles anyway! So not only will I never go back to AVG, I’ll never go back to Avira now either! I expect we’ll all either go back to NOD32, or get the identically-priced Kaspersky, which currently seems to be behaving better than NOD32. I’ve long considered the 2 the 2 best AV products available (just that once upon a time you could get free ones that were ‘good enough’).
Hi Pogle,
Free Anti virus offerings seem to follow the same path over a period of years from a useful free product to bloatware to malware.
I am still pretty happy with the paid for version of Avira on my work PC but I have noticed the changes you mention on the free version on our family PC.
My current favourite is Panda which seems to work well and is quite unobtrusive. But commercial pressures may well make it follow the same path as AVG and Avira, nothing is really free.
I absolutly argee. I too have used AVG for a long time and recommended it to friends and colleauges, but no more. Anti virus soft is there to protect my computer, so it is shoching to realise it is invading my computer with out my permission. Even althought my licence still has some months to run I am diching AVG.