AVG Free Anti-Virus turning into Adware

I’ve been using AVG Anti-Virus (free) for just about forever. I’m really not a believer in subscription anti-virus, as;

a) I hardly ever have problems with viruses, and
b) anti-virus is like oil – there’s no reason to come up with something better ‘cos everyone interested will lose money on all those cancelled subscriptions.

But lately AVG have been pushing a pop-up onto my screen as part of the daily update process – every day! It’s just a stupid pop-up with the usual marketing blurb, but from the way it grabs focus to the several seconds it takes me away from my day-job, I find it really annoying. Really, really annoying. It amounts to abusing their client base.

Now I appreciate that the software is free for me, but not free for them. ANnd I’m all for taking part in the odd survey, if they wanted to find out why I don’t buy AV. Or what kind of AV I would buy. Or what kind of user I am. Like Zonealarm, in fact, after every update of that freeware.

But a stupid annoying pop-up every day, that gets changed to make it more intrusive and harder to close, isn’t my idea of good marketing. This is the kind of rubbish I avoid by using Firefox with AdBlock, FlashBlock and NoScript add-ons. And I find it really annoying to have to suffer without a no-thanks-I’m-never-going-to-upgrade opt-out.

Really, really annoying. In fact, just yesterday, asked to recommend an anti-virus product, for the first time in ages I DIDN’T recommend AVG. The person is using Avast, which I personally hate for the stupid distracting revolving task-tray icon, but I said “Oh, keep that, AVG is just too annoying now”. So that’s one potential future paying customer lost for AVG.

If it was easy to find and download the new free version, I would still be recommending AVG, but 3 attempts to download the installer have failed. One more attempt and I’m moving to Avast myself! Of course, if it really does suck up 70MB of system memory, or hoses my network connection, it’ll be going off quicker than it got on – which itself could be a problem! Hopefully installing without some of the garbage will make a difference, otherwise I’ll just have to check out some of the competition – if there is any!

If anyone is interested, the Free PC Security blog has installation instructions.

New Blogging Software

I’ve downloaded “Scribefire” for Firefox – hopefully this way it’ll be less hassle to write blogs when something occurs to me to blog about!

Bye Bye Bertie

It’s quite sickening how the bloody-hungry pack of howling dogs (“wolves” would be a metaphor too far!) that was the Irish press have turned into a big flock of bleating sheap over Bertie – each journalist outdooring the other in saying “Ah sure, I always liked Bertie, it was the other rags that were doing him in”. At least Brendan O’Connor has been consisent in his bootlicking of the ex-Taoseach so his latest article isn’t that out of place.
But the Indo is certainly leading the pack as far as I’m concerned (or the flock, rather); just a few weeks ago we had Senan Molony writing a very negative review of Aherns Sky News interview.
The list could on, but Google only gets me back a few weeks and that’s been enough time for every paper to fill up with how fantastic Bertie really is and how awful the Tribunals are.
Face facts folk – the guy was banking home multiples of his take-home pay! He obstructed the Tribunal at every turn. It’s taking years to dig out of people information that they clearly don’t want getting to the light of day.
So good riddance to Bertie, you won’t hear me complaining.

Congestion Charge – Sicily Style

Ok, so Cammarata decides Palermo needs a congestion/pollution charge. As Palermo doesn’t actually have any infrastructure in which to implement a per-user charge like London, or indeed any traffic management plan that I can discern, the city has been split into 3 zones;
Zone A; the southern part of the city centre
Zone B; the northern part of the city centre
Everywhere else.

Zone Map Palermo

Typically Italian style, the whole thing is extremely cumbersome and buearocratic. No simple rules for us here in Palermo!

To start with, the type of car you have affects what zones you can use. If you have a care Euro 0, 1, or 2 standard car, you can’t get into Zone A.

If you have a Euro 3, you can access both zones…

and if you have a nice new Euro 4 or 5 standard car, you don’t have to pay a thing.

So, all those rich people with big Mercs and Beemers, don’t pay a penny, but all the poor sods who can’t afford better than a creaking Fiat 500, get done for 15 euros.

And it doesn’t stop there, no sir! Burdensome and slow is just part of Italian state, we’re beyond that here! This is where the “Sicilian” style comes into it!

I saw that the Vodafone shop in via Marchese della Villabianca was selling the cards, so I assumed that Vodafone got the contract to sell them – hah, I was thinking like a northern European again! Silly me.

No, just that Vodafone shop. Suspicions as to why and wherefor shall remain unsaid, thanks to Italian libel laws…

So what’s everyone to do? I’ll telll you; wait outside the Vodafone shop, having added one’s name to the list, and sit in the baking heat until the staff deign to open the doors to a lucky few customers. And the shop didn’t start selling them until 4pm, by which time there was 130 names on the list, and some 2 dozen people waiting.

And the process takes 15 minutes per card…

Congestion charge, Sicilian style!

My Ireland

My Ireland

Originally uploaded by A’mìo

These are some of the images A’Mio has captured on some of her many trips to Ireland. I particularly like the shot of the GPO and the Spike, which has a great angle.