Avast Internet Security Issues: Linkman Bookmark utility, DuckDuckGo, Vagueness

Avast Internet Security Issues: Linkman Bookmark utility, DuckDuckGo Search Engine, Vagueness

Greetings,

I’ve installed Avast Internet Security 2018 for a trial run. Issues:

  1. Linkman Bookmark Utility
    I use the (reasonably swell) Linkman Bookmark Utility to manage my bookmarks (see https://www.outertech.com/en/bookmark-manager). The manager installs addons so that it can be launched from within various browsers. AIS prevents me from successfully launching Linkman from within Firefox 52.7.3 (32-bit) browser. (I haven’t tried Opera.) When I launch Linkman from within AIS, I’m presented with a JavaScript dialog reporting that Firefox “Failed to communicate with Linkman.” Thoughts?
    Additional Info: Firefox and Linkman communicate with port 80, if it matters.

  2. DuckDuckGo “Unreputable”!
    AIS has warned me that my default search engine is the “Unreputable” search engine DuckDuckGo, and that it might be putting my privacy at risk. I found the warning quite frightening. Not that I’m the least bit worried about the reputable and private search engine DuckDuckGo, but that I’ve installed security software written by folks with a clearly imperfect grasp on security. Perhaps someone might wish to fix the issue.

  3. Vague Prompts.
    In case anyone at Avast is reading this, I do not find AIS’s oblique, vague prompts the least bit comforting. Offering me the opportunity to click on a “Resolve” button without first explaining what sort of resolving will take place, engenders in me quite the opposite sort of feelings that perhaps your programmers were aiming for.

Thanks in advance.

Hi Fred,

ad 2.: You can safely ignore it, DDG is even included in new ASB, so certainly no threat.

I have been banging on about this Resolve button for absolutely ages. Resolve is an ‘action’ word, when it needs to be an ‘Informative’ word, such as Details. When you click the Resolve button it actually shows some more information, though that is unlikely to be very detailed (I can’t recall exactly, as I got rid of it after testing). But then again you never know what might happen so you don’t use it.

I take it that this came after running a Smart Scan ?
Personally I would remove the Browser Cleanup function in the Avast > Settings > Components.

Even though you are using the Trial version, you might want to kill the Ad promotions for other avast products.

Greetings,

Thanks for the replies.

If we have figured out that DDG is perfectly safe, and that supplying an action word without mentioning what sort of action is intended is wrong (and I think against Windoze programming standards), why hasn’t Avast?

As to when the DDG warnings first appeared, and why they stopped appearing, I don’t really recall. Keep in mind that I’m utterly new to Avast, and that in order to make the program seems nice and friendly it keeps me largely out-of-the-loop as to what it is doing, why it is doing it, and when it is doing it.

Also, does anyone have any ideas about question 1?

Thanks again.

Follow Dave’s suggestions, they’re sound.

You’re welcome.

I’m just wondering if it might be the Web Shield interaction with the browser and possibly interfering with the communication. You could test by temporarily disabling the web shield for 10 minutes.

The ESR version of Firefox has been doing some strange things recently after a recent update. It removed my default search engine Yahoo UK and when you try to ad a search plugin it replies with search plugins aren’t supported in this version.

OT but FYI: https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/14/mozilla-terminates-its-deal-with-yahoo-and-makes-google-the-default-in-firefox-again/

I had a suspicion that there would be a financial incentive involved also, many people will use almost any search engine so long as it isn’t google :wink:

Dear DavidR,

Thanks for the continuing support and the suggestion.

After some experimentation, I discovered that it was (apparently) Avast’s firewall that was stopping Linkman, my bookmark manager, from working. After disabling it, Linkman worked properly. Interestingly, after reenabling Avast’s firewall, Linkman still seems to be working properly, though I’ve yet to reboot my computer. I also tried setting setting Avast’s firewall to “ask” when it encountered “Programs with no defined rules …”, but it never did.

I’ll report back on whether Avast’s firewall has been tamed. Just in case it hasn’t, is there any reason why I shouldn’t disable Avast’s firewall and use Windoze XP’s firewall instead?

Thanks again.

Yes, the Windows FW included in XP is crap.

Totally agreed there it has inbound protection and even that isn’t great. If you happened to get infected there is nothing to prevent it getting out and inviting their malware friends.

The firewall Windows offers in Windows 10 happens to be excellent. :slight_smile:

Unfortunately the OP isn’t using Windows 10, but XP :wink:

Maybe that’s something else to consider… :slight_smile: