Avast - lost the plot?

This morning, I uploaded an update to my RouterStats-Lite program and, as I always do, I downloaded it again to check that the upload wasn't corrupted...

Except, Avast seems to know better

I'm all in favour of caution but a recommendation NOT to download something because it's "very new" or "very rare" seems a bit OTT to me. How the heck are people supposed to download the latest version of anything!

Avast has been getting more annoying lately anyway with its incessant popups so uninstalling it and switching to Microsoft Security essentials was a no-brainer!

The security freaks would love things like that though, because they know better and think because their security software is being a PITA it means they are more secure.

This behaviour added to a product that's known for it's inate propensity to FP everything it sees????.

In reply to a post by Deadbeat:

This behaviour added to a product that's known for it's inate propensity to FP everything it sees????.

Jokes aside the main reason I dislike notices like this is because they drive out small software shops and inexperienced users may not use a program just due to these popups. Long term, it will cause damage to the software ecosystem and individual developers. Quite sad.

At the very least it should say VERY clearly something alluding to the fact the software/activity could be totally safe if it coincides with action the user has taken.

The problem is that one man's malware is another man's "Bargain Buddy Lottery Picks Whatever" toolbar.

Choice of action simply can't be negotiable on a system that allows the user so much interaction. if the user doesn't want to be educated regarding such choices, then it's V-Tech for him!

Didn't see your last paragraph...... A problem there is that AV/AM suppliers can become involved in litigation if it tags a software product as malware or adware or whatever.
This was a tactic used by CWS, Transponder and their ilk a few years ago. They never had a hope of success in winning a case but they made life so uncomfortable for the likes of Symantec, McAffee etc that some quite dodgy products were recategorised as safe.

Edited by Deadbeat (Wed 21-Nov-12 21:43:54)

This feature is being added to all of the major consumer AV products and it operates exactly the same way on all I've come across.

Presumably when a threshold is reached on the central server they check with that x number of machines have proceed with the download the server responds with a 'this software is ok, proceed' message so the alert is not displayed,

I agree it can be a PITA but malware writers can churn out malware much quicker than signatures can be developed and distributed and they are also constantly coming up with ways to avoid detection by the heuristics which is behaviour analysis based so what is the solution?

Its far easier to click Allow than to have your work or leisure time taken up with cleaning up the malware or reformatting surely?

Adware and sponsorware is such a grey area that even the largest databases or the smartest heusristics couldn't say good or bad. Probably the best that it can achieve is to inform that "x% of reports of this software are reported as unwanted/malicious" or similar.......... Then ask!.

The solution is ultimately to give the users a choice. At least this is what they are doing here to be fair and the warning could have been a lot worse. I am concerned however going forward the next step is for things like this to be on a default block with no warning, and then after that no choice at all -- the only apps you will be allowed to run are the ones that are approved, that is of course after your OS has dialed home and told the server exactly what you're trying to run. Windows 8 also plays this game too but to be fair they promise the data collected is totally anonymous and secondly they give you the chance to disable it or bypass the warnings, for the moment I believe them.

This is a big step backwards and very harmful to the computer community.

The saddest part of all is that the user base bring this on themselves, this is why I get so worked up about "misguided" individuals (such as Helen Goodman who are effectively advocating a police state model of computer usage.

I'd happily go on about this for hours but that is it in a nutshell - I'm not knocking the fact that a lot of this has the very best intentions (to make computing more secure), but as usual this may come at the expense of, at the very least, your wallet, as more indie developers are pushed out and/or their costs forced up, and at worst, the loss of freedom on your computer.

Edited by Pipexer (Wed 21-Nov-12 23:29:01)