Internet Slow to Crawl and Frequently Cannot Connect or Hang After Installing AVG 8.0
After installing AVG Anti-Virus 8.0 or AVG Internet Security 8.0, the Internet network connection significantly slowdown. Browsing and surfing Internet web pages and websites using Internet Explorer (IE such as IE7) or Firefox web browser, the speed slow to a crawl. Intermittently (actually is frequently), web browser can’t even connect to websites or web servers, and loading of web pages fail.
Sometimes, the web page is loading, but only partially or incompletely, especially on external component such as CSS or ads, causing distorted layout. On worse case, the web browser will freeze and hang upon accessing and loading of web pages, and user have to terminate and end the program from Task Manager. And some may feels that AVG 8.0 degrade system performance and slow down the overall computer speed.
The slow or inaccessible Internet problem happens due to the new anti-exploit technology namely AVG Active Surf-Shield and Search-Shield, part of LinkScanner module that incoporated into the AVG Security Toolbar with Yahoo! Search. These technology has been acquired through the purchase of Exploit Prevention Labs in 2007 and has been added to AVG 8 series of products. The Safe Surfing, Safe Searching of LinkScanner plus Web Shield provides real-time proactive protection against zero day exploits, drive-by downloads, phishing sites, online scams and poisoned social engineering trick pages by scanning search results in Google, Yahoo! and other search engines, protecting users from malicious web pages, and scanning files during download or exchange over ICQ or MSN instant messaging to ensure they are safe and free of malicious content.
With such active protection against everything related to Internet activities, it’s hardly surprise that AVG 8.0 slows down the Internet web browsing and surfing. Thus, the resolution or workaround to the AVG conflict or interference with Internet is to try to disable LinkScanner and/or Web Shield services, and if not successfully fix the problem, uninstall (not install) or disable the Security Toolbar and its associated LinkScanner (LinkShield).
To disable Web Shield and/or Link Scanner (Safe Search and Safe Surf) memory resident shield component, open AVG Control Panel User Interface (AVGTay), and then select LinkScanner to uncheck Enable AVG Seach-Shield (need web browser restart) and Enable AVG Active Surf-Shield to disable all interception during web browsing. Or select Web Shield to uncheck the Enable Web Shield to disable checks on downloads. Click Save changes when done. Also disable the AVG SAfe Search plug-in in Firefox and add-on in IE browser too.
If disabling the Web Shield related services does not fix the issue, try to remove the LinkScanner module. It’s almost impossible to uninstall LinkScanner module or AVG Security Toolbar alone. So the workaround alternative is to uninstall AVG 8.0 program, and then reinstall AVG 8.0 with unwanted modules and AVG Security Toolbar not selected.
To not install the AVG Security Toolbar and LinkScanner during installation of AVG 8.0 AntiVirus or AVG Internet Security 8.0, choose Custom Installation, and then uncheck the check box for option to install Web Shield (and Link Shield if any) in Module Selection dialog of the installation wizard. By unselecting Web Shield, Web Shield, Link Scanner and AVG Toolbar are not installed. If you choose not to deselect Web Shield, unselect the option of Yes, I would like to install AVG Security Toolbar when asked. But note that AVG Safe Search add-on or plugin, which primarily responsible for the slow Internet, is still installed into web browsers
For AVG Free 8.0 edition, also choose to install via Custom Installation method. User will be asked whether to install AVG Security Toolbar during the installation process. Untick the checkbox of Yes, I would like to install AVG Security Toolbar.
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Entries (RSS)
April 30th, 2008 18:34
so, developed a technology which requires people to turn it off, nice
May 1st, 2008 11:34
The easy way. uninstall AVG 8 and reinstall AVG 7.5 - The Snuffy way. I’m tired of working all the damn time trying to correct something that should never have been released .. my ISP is slow enough with out AVG 8 killing it..
May 1st, 2008 20:06
It is always a compromise between usability and security. I think they’ve gone to far with this one, but I am using a free version of AVG 8 anyway so thanks for the tip.
May 2nd, 2008 23:33
It’s a shame Grisoft is dropping support for 7.5 as of May 31 it appears. A Huge step backwards… time to switch to a different free virus software I guess! 8.0 slows my CeleronD Xp laptop to unusable levels!
May 12th, 2008 23:14
After upgrading to AVG 8, my browser history stopped recording sites Ive been to. Using IE7 and Vista.
Anyone else come across this?
May 13th, 2008 01:22
Yeah, i tried AVG 8 Antivirus with that free license i got here.
But i stopped using it. Why?
Well, because it made lsass.exe go crazy, the disk reads for that process went through the roof.
After disabling AVG 8 service, the aforementioned process went back to behaving normally.
Needless to say, i uninstalled AVG 8 right away. I tried disabling components (like resident shield, for example) but it still affected the lsass.exe process. AVG 8 woulda probably broken my hard disk with all those disk reads it caused lsass.exe to make
May 13th, 2008 01:27
Here’s a test for you guys:
Install AVG 8 Antivirus. After installation, when AVG is loaded and active, fire up the good ol’ taskmgr. Go to processes tab–>view–>select columns..–>tick I/O reads.
Now check out lsass.exe -process’ I/O reads statistics. Bananas. Like 36 reads a second or something.
July 12th, 2008 01:49
[...] the Search-Shield and Active Surf-Shield Link Scanner technologies are known to cause slow web pages loading or cannot cannot problem. Beside, Search-Shield and Surf-Shield may block certain websites, especially those related to [...]
July 12th, 2008 01:53
[...] new AVG 8 features of LinkScanner and Web Shield is infamous for slowing down the Internet browsing and surfing speed. In some worst case, Link Scanner’s Search-Shield and Active Surf-Shield is causing total [...]