Re: Firefox, AVG, and Infections

David H. Lipman wrote:
From: "W. eWatson" <wolftracks@xxxxxxxxxxx>

| David H. Lipman wrote:
From: "W. eWatson" <wolftracks@xxxxxxxxxxx>

| I'm having some trouble with Firefox, and have gotten to the phase where
| I decided to run a virus checker on my C: HD. My basic difficulty is
| what I would call herky-jerky operation. When I'm typing or scrolling,
| things stop for many seconds, then start. It came after a the plug from
| my PC accidentally pulled out. FF failed upon recovery. I put it back
| together by re-installing and retaining e-mail, etc. For awhile it
| worked fine, but then started halting as above. I did a cclean, and that
| got it rolling again, only for the problem to return within 10 or so hours.

| I did a diagnostic on the HD and it passed. I then began to try a virus
| check with AVG, which I have never used before. I have question about
| what it report. If I knew of a web site to temporarily post images of
| the vault, I'd post it.

| I posted the following in the FF support group.
| ...

| My virus scan with AVG proved very interesting. It found several
| infections, three were trojans, several tracking cookies (associated
| with FF and probably SeaMonkey, and a worm in
| Doc&Settings/.../dialsys.exe. I took care of them. They are now in the
| vault. That was all last evening.

| Some hours of the scan I sat down at the PC to find AVG Resident Shield
| had found two more Trojan Horses. Correcting thes matters last night
| provided no change in the problem with FF that I reported.

| What's quite surprising to me is the "infections". Apparently, AT&T
| Yahoo s/w isn't doing its job, or AVG is much too sensitive to them. By
| the latter, I mean are these infections dead on arrival anyway? In
| almost a decade of internet use, I've contracted maybe 3 viruses. This
| is certainly different.

| Well, I'll continue to trouble shoot today as I can. Right now I'm just
| using SeaMonkey.

Please add to your scan, Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam/program/mbam-setup.exe

PS: I doubt that AVG is "too sensitive" nor finding False Positives.

| On what basis do you think I should try another virus checker. A five
| star review somewhere?

| What I'm suggesting is there's a potential for some bias for sales
| purposes. That's not necessarily directed at AVG. Is there a standards
| committee on viruses, worms, etc.?

You are confused.
A natural state. And an example of non-viral malware is what?

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware (MBAM) is not an anti virus. That is AVG. MBAM handles non viral malware and you in your own words have indicated AVG found several trojans.

AT&T and Yahoo do NOT write anti malware software. At best what you have is an OEM product. The question is WHO is actually the vendor ?
Of course not. Did I say they did? Whatever they use to protect e-mail and firewalls is likely written by someone else. They do provide such protection, right?

MBAM is a very good anti malware utility and is free to use to remove malware.

Surely you jest about a standards comittee on malware. Do you really think malware authors will conform to a standard ?
Shirley, I do to some extent. The question I pose is there a standard for what might generally called infections? You know, something that puts everyone on the same footing (s/w developers of infectious s/w), so that they don't slip in some crazy thing to demonstrate they are better than the other guys?

I don't think it's an unfair question to ask who rates infection preventive software? Is PC magazine the arbiter.


But let's not get confused here on side issues. The real question is interpreting the AVG messages. Can someone take a look at the messages via a temporary web site that I can post images to of the vault contents?
.

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