Changing of the anti-virus guard

Yep, it's true. I've been sucked into Fahim's perpetual cycle of switching anti-virus every few months, only now, it's expanded to include firewalls. But this time, it's partially my fault as well. 

I've been using <a href="http://free.avg.com/nl-nl/homepage" target="_blank">AVG Free version 8.0</a> with much happiness. It's a decent program, it works well with little to no fuss on my side of things, and it's free. What more could a girl want? 

But I've also been using <a href="http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/" target="_blank">Comodo firewall</a>, and that doesn't bring me happiness. This, however, I recognize as also my fault. 

I'm not a typical user. I want to see for myself which programs have firewall access and to what extent. What programs are sending information out to the net? And yes, I DO want to block some programs that might otherwise be considered as legitimate. 

With <a href="http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/" target="_blank">Comodo</a>, I can't really do that. Yes, I can manually block programs, but I can't see a list of which programs have access or are blocked. 

For most users, this is fine. They want a firewall program that just gets the job done without bothering them. Most users want to be able to install a program and never have it bother them again while the program just does its thing, updates silently, and so on. I understand that. For those users, this program is probably quite fine. But I'm not them. 

So Fahim convinces me to switch over to <a href="http://www.symantec.com/norton/internet-security" target="_blank">Norton Internet Security 2009 (NIS 2009)</a> since it's supposed to be much kinder on RAM usage. While it works well for him, my computer, with 1/4 the RAM of his, will be the real test. So uninstall AVG and Comodo time. 

And that's when <a href="http://free.avg.com/nl-nl/homepage" target="_blank">AVG</a> begins to irritate me, although this is not a purely AVG problem, but rather, something that more and more programs are apt to do lately. 

After uninstalling <a href="http://free.avg.com/nl-nl/homepage" target="_blank">AVG</a>, it launched a tab within Firefox, probably asking &quot;Why did you uninstall us? We're perfect!&quot; Except. In order to unintall AVG, I had to shut FireFox down, so launching a tab in my default browser meant starting FireFox up again, and this is where the real problem lies. 

Instead of the two windows in Firefox that I had when I shut down, somehow the second window was suppressed and didn't load, so now the second window of tabs is gone. Piss on you, AVG. 

Uninstalling <a href="http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/" target="_blank">Comodo</a> also launched Firefox to open a new tab, probably also with the whole &quot;Why are you uninstalling us? We're perfect&quot; bit. Except I never let those tabs load. Fie on you, Comodo. 

Seriously, these software manufacturers need to stop being so arrogant and self-centered. 

What is so complicated about launching a dialogue box instead saying whatever they want with a link to a web page if they must have one? Why must they load a web page in my default browser? Why must they insist on starting up an external program? 

But then, that's my main complaint anyway. I actually do want to do things my way, not the way the software says I have to do it. I don't like the assumptions and decisions that some software manufacturers make. I don't like that they're more concerned with 
Author: LMAshton
Howdy! I'm a beginner artist, hobbyist photographer, kitchen witch, wanderer by nature, and hermit introvert. This is my blog feed. You can find my fediverse posts at https://a.farook.org/Laurie.

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