SoftWareProgs.com

Summary
Here I will describe how three big name companies managed to waste more than a work day.

Comcast Blocking
On May 10, 2008, I received from
Comcast Customer Security Assurance <abuse-noreply@comcast.net>
——-
“Dear Comcast Customer:
ACTION REQUIRED: Comcast has determined that your computer(s) have
been used to send unsolicited email (”spam”), which is
generally an indicator of a virus. For your own protection
and that of other Comcast customers, we have taken steps to
prevent further transmission of spam from your computer(s).

If you use a web browser to access your email, this change
will not affect your service. However, it is important that
you take steps to remove the virus and secure your
computer(s). This can be done by using the FREE McAfee Antivirus
and Firewall software available from Comcast on the Comcast Security
Channel.”
——-

I used the member on-line form to tell them that I had never sent spam, but also proceeded to download the Comcast prepaid copy of McAfee Security Center suite. Note that I had already been using “SpyBot Search and Destroy” and AVG Anti-Virus, which said my PC was clean.

McAfee Boo-Boo
The initial download was a download manager to fetch the full multi-megabyte installer. Even on cable, the download and install took time.

The install halted and said that one of its components (the only one I wanted, in fact) was incompatible with the installed AVG Anti-Virus. Hiding AVG files in a zip did not help. Uninstalling did not clear the problem.

McAfee’s blunder is that the installer can’t restart, but I had to restart the download manager to refetch the multi-megabyte installer. The McAfee downloads I found in a C: temp folder just would not do anything. The upshot was that I had to download four times, after clearing AVG boo-boo.

Come on McAfee. Such design blunders cast doubt on your ability to protect computers against software invaders.

Grisoft / AVG Anti-Virus Boo-Boo
I used the Windows “Settings>Control Panel>Add or Remove Programs” to uninstall AVG. That did not satisfy McAfee. So I opened regedit Registry Editor to manually remove all references to AVG and Grisoft, which took about a half hour. Of course, I had saved a copy of the registry before making edits. Grisoft and/or Microsoft really should upgrade the uninstall tool. Not every PC user is willing to edit the system files.

Comcast Boo-Boo
Comcast never responded to my report that (a) I never send spam, (b) their McAfee found my computer to be clean, lacking any bot malware that could have sent spam in my name. I then spent 27 minutes with Comcast Support’s live chat, using Outlook Express (not my normal email client) to go through server settings to get error messages for why my sends were blocked. The net result was to “change the outgoing server port from 25 to 587″. The explanation: “Someone else within the same IP range as you may have sent a lot of spam so we would have to close port 25 off to everyone in that range. This is why you can use these new settings instead. Port 587 is the new, more secure, setting for sending mail. Many ISP’s are instituting this change gradually.”

Okay, I can again send email through Comcast (as well as my various domains). The problem never was with me or my PC.

Result
Over ten hours of my life wasted because three big name companies committed software design blunders. The funny thing is that Comcast is on the “Open Relays Blacklist” for sending spam, a listing service that has been turned off because of massive spammer attacks.

Addendum, 14 May 2008
Even with firewall and mail filter disabled, the McAfee suite typically uses 10 to 100 percent of my fast CPU, which is totally not acceptable.

Copyright 2008 by Donald A. Miller, PhD / SoftWareProgs.com,
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