Active Virus Shield goes inactive

[Mainframeguy]

If there is a thread for this and I missed it then by all means merge it....

Anyone running Active Virus Shield, which was an AOL free AV app based on Kaspersky Av updates will find that it is no longer available to download and that it no longer auto updates - AOL have in their infinite wisdom decided to shift to McAffee and to no longer offer this free.

However I have tried the workaround of shutting down AVS then going to Documents and Settings > All Users > Application data > AOL > AVP6 > Data > aol-updcfg.xml file and remove the lines

<site2 url="[URL]ftp://download.newaol.com/avs/update/mirror/[/URL]"  diff_url="diffs" weight="10000001" region="*" /> 
 <site2 url="[URL]http://download.newaol.com/avs/update/mirror/[/URL]"  diff_url="diffs" weight="10000000" region="*" />

then you may be able to get updates through, but be warned the fix is not guaranteed and it is likely you will find AVS adds those lines back in although you do not want it to, meaning auto-update is rather a manual process.

 

[Xie]

Yeah, is not good news. I put this on my parents machine as Kaspersky is one of the best AV out there, and being free fit there AV budget great. I saw awhile ago that AOL has sinced change from Kaspersky to McAaffee (seems customer protection is worth much less then just pretending to do "the right thing"). Last I knew (last week?) they were still getting updates, are these indeed over now? Also would it be possible to take and do the hack above and insert K's update server addys?

 

[American Zombie]

Ya, this was posted long ago at the Kaspersky forums.

Kaspersky is now at version 7 and AVS was at ( I think) 6.0.0.299 which means you are stuck with an older engine and only get the signature updates.

 

[Mainframeguy]

... Also would it be possible to take and do the hack above and insert K's update server addys?

the code that is there goes like this:-

<sites_list>    
 <site2 url="[URL]ftp://download.newaol.com/avs/update/mirror/[/URL]"  diff_url="diffs" weight="10000001" region="*" /> 
 <site2 url="[URL]http://download.newaol.com/avs/update/mirror/[/URL]"  diff_url="diffs" weight="10000000" region="*" />
 <site2 url="[URL="http://dnl-us3.kaspersky-labs.com/"]http://dnl-us3.kaspersky-labs.com[/URL]"    diff_url="diffs" weight="100" region="klr" />
 <site2 url="[URL="http://dnl-us4.kaspersky-labs.com/"]http://dnl-us4.kaspersky-labs.com[/URL]"    diff_url="diffs" weight="100" region="klr" />
 <site2 url="[URL="http://dnl-eu5.kaspersky-labs.com/"]http://dnl-eu5.kaspersky-labs.com[/URL]"    diff_url="diffs" weight="100" region="klr" />
 <site2 url="[URL="ftp://dnl-us3.kaspersky-labs.com/"]ftp://dnl-us3.kaspersky-labs.com[/URL]"    diff_url="diffs" weight="100" region="klr" />
 <site2 url="[URL="ftp://dnl-us4.kaspersky-labs.com/"]ftp://dnl-us4.kaspersky-labs.com[/URL]"    diff_url="diffs" weight="100" region="klr" />
 <site2 url="[URL="ftp://dnl-eu5.kaspersky-labs.com/"]ftp://dnl-eu5.kaspersky-labs.com[/URL]"    diff_url="diffs" weight="100" region="klr" />
 <site2 url="[URL]http://downloads1.kaspersky-labs.com/[/URL]"   diff_url="diffs" weight="1" region="klr" />
 <site2 url="[URL]http://downloads2.kaspersky-labs.com/[/URL]"   diff_url="diffs" weight="1" region="klr" />
 <site2 url="[URL]http://downloads3.kaspersky-labs.com/[/URL]"   diff_url="diffs" weight="1" region="klr" />
 <site2 url="[URL]http://downloads4.kaspersky-labs.com/[/URL]"   diff_url="diffs" weight="1" region="klr" />
 <site2 url="[URL]http://downloads5.kaspersky-labs.com/[/URL]"   diff_url="diffs" weight="1" region="klr" />
 <site2 url="[URL]ftp://downloads1.kaspersky-labs.com/[/URL]"   diff_url="diffs" weight="1" region="klr" />
 <site2 url="[URL]ftp://downloads2.kaspersky-labs.com/[/URL]"   diff_url="diffs" weight="1" region="klr" />
 <site2 url="[URL]ftp://downloads3.kaspersky-labs.com/[/URL]"   diff_url="diffs" weight="1" region="klr" />
 <site2 url="[URL]ftp://downloads4.kaspersky-labs.com/[/URL]"   diff_url="diffs" weight="1" region="klr" />
 <site2 url="[URL]ftp://downloads5.kaspersky-labs.com/[/URL]"   diff_url="diffs" weight="1" region="klr" />
</sites_list>

so as you can see the kaspersky servers are already there and you are just taking away the inactive AOL ones..... but this is not a seamless solution.

 

[Xie]

Ok cool, thanks! I might have to check this out tomorrow. I read the thread on Kaspersky forums and seems some people are still getting the updates no problems at all.

 

[Geffy]

I added download.newaol.com as 127.0.0.1 in my hosts file. So they fail to connect anyway.

 

[Xie]

I forgot to try that. I did try and make the updcfg file read-only with no joy (still overwritten each update). Though after I did the tip posted by Mainframeguy it kept updating fine AFAIK.

 

[Mainframeguy]

yeah it is weird that - the program rewrites the lines to the CFG file, but then the updates keep coming regardless.

 

[American Zombie]

For those who use AVS and would like to upgrade.

Kaspersky is offering their Internet Security Suite 7.0 for 49.95 to AVS users and it covers three PC's.
Fairly cheap price to cover three computers with top notch protection.

 

[Mainframeguy]

Just a heads up for anyone on this old freebie that they killed it - even with the workaround - recently (about 2 or 3 weeks back)... Looks like AOL sold out to McAfee - not sure who bought who though!

So back to AVG free for me...