Is your server being hammered by AVG8?

After Grisoft forced an upgrade in May (AVG7 is no longer sup****ted),
by default, the new version
**pre-fetches EVERY link on every page users surf to**
and it re****ts a bogus User Agent
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?lowbandwidth=1&no_d2=1&mode=nested&threshold=5&sid=08/07/03/1411254#24045121

NOTE: All these links are to different points on the same page;
if you drag & drop them onto the original tab/page,
it will hammer Slashdot less.
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?lowbandwidth=1&no_d2=1&mode=nested&threshold=5&sid=08/07/03/1411254#24045401
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?lowbandwidth=1&no_d2=1&mode=nested&threshold=5&sid=08/07/03/1411254#24045529

Slashdot says this is causing an extra 6 percent load on them
and is screwing up their stats.

Methods have been suggested
for how site owners can deal with the rogue behavior:
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?lowbandwidth=1&no_d2=1&mode=nested&threshold=5&sid=08/07/03/1411254#24046847
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?lowbandwidth=1&no_d2=1&mode=nested&threshold=5&sid=08/07/03/1411254#24046825
..
..
If you run AVG8, you can disable this garbage "feature":
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?lowbandwidth=1&no_d2=1&mode=nested&threshold=5&sid=08/07/03/1411254#24044961

For those who require a free AV,
ClamWin(GPL) & Avast are available--and are less bloated
(and less clueless and/or evil).

....and, of course, if you run a Gecko-based browser
with NoScript, AdBlock, FlashBlock, etc.
and use a little common sense, you avoid most of the crap anyway.