False Positive? Avast! warning on GH

[InSanCen]

Just a heads up.

I got this clicking on the "what was your first computer" thread.

[EverythingIBM]

Stuck Geekhack.org in Norton and it came up clean. Nuttin from Microsoft Security Essentials.   And since only Jbert and I posted links I don't think there's anything there in that particular thread.  I'm not trying to win the troll award THAT badly.

Sure it's not on your end?  I had avast for a while but the constant updating was driving me nuts. Plus I could never take their Argghhh Matey theme seriously.   Am on Microsoft Security Essentials and am quite happy with it.

Windows security essentials AND norton are terrible. Especially norton, it deleted some important windows files on my 300PL. And it ran really slow.

I'd reccomend either AVG or tenebril spycatcher (spycatcher is great, one of the best pieces of software in my opinion).

[zwmalone]

I'd like to know how MSE is terrible? Low memory footprint, good detection... I fail to see the problem.

[InSanCen]

MSE is not terrible as far as Windows antivirus goes EIBM, read up a bit on it. I just happened to chuck Avast on it because, well, I'm not in Windows all that often and it was there.

It was more of a heads up just incase.

[kishy]

MSE user here. Swear by it. Beautiful piece of software.

Ridiculously low resource use. Excellent performance. Realtime scanning is not terribly intrusive, provides proper options to permit the dangerous file if I need it, and doesn't add a ridiculous delay to opening files as do some other realtime scanners. I've had zero false positives.

I particularly like that it does spyware/malware as well. Realtime scanning for non-virus-but-still-bad-stuff is not easy to find in the world of free (as in beer but not as in speech) software.

Formerly AVG Free user, up until sometime after 7.5 reared its ugly resource-hogging head. After that, went Comodo Antivirus and Firewall (separately), later Comodo Internet Security, and now that my needs for a powerful software firewall are diminishing I just dumped the third party security software entirely. I'm not disappointed.

[ch_123]

I'd like to know how MSE is terrible? Low memory footprint, good detection... I fail to see the problem.

ITS NOT MADE BY IBM LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111111

Seriously though, a neighbour's computer had a dodgy hard drive which was rendering Windows inoperable (after about 6 boot cycles, Windows would refuse to boot, and would need to be reinstalled) so I decided to back up their data pending them buying a new system. They have three teenage sons with a penchant for limewire, and a bad taste in porn, so I updated and ran AVG before packing up the stuff to my disk. It picked up some stuff so I thought it was grand.

At the time, I think was running a cracked and old copy of NOD32 on my computer, and a scan picked up loads of stuff in the backup folder that the latest AVG with the latest definitions missed. Some time passed by (I told them to wait for Windows 7 to come out before getting a new system, which meant I had this stuff lying around for about a month and a half) and I had switched to Avira because my old NOD32 wouldn't update any more, and lo and behold it found things that the old NOD32 hadn't and that AVG didn't.

By the time they got their computer, I had changed to MSE (Avira had annoying pop-ups, and there was problems with their update server around the time I used it), and yes, MSE did find even more ****e still.

Other reasons why AVG sucks - it has lots of annoying pop ups and dialogs, it's big and clunky, and I've seen the updates screw up too many times. It also only handles viruses. MSE works quietly in the background and doesn't waste resources, and takes spyware on too.

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Of course, the best anti-virus is to get a Mac.

[hyperlinked]

Of course, the best anti-virus is to get a Mac.

But only if you can get one of those Macs made by IBM.

[ch_123]

Well, an Apple Network Server had a PPC processor, and ran AIX, so for all intents and purposes it was an IBM Mac.

[hyperlinked]

I managed to get a variant of the Vundo Trojan on my ASUS netbook a few weeks ago and nothing I used could get rid of it. By the time I finally killed it I had gone through McAffee AntiVirus 2010, rkill, ESET Scanner, VundoFix, HijackThis, and MalwareBytes. I think MalwareBytes was the one that finally did it in and none of the regular actions on any of the standard actions of any of the programs would work right until I booted a bunch of times into safe mode on restart.

I'm pretty fond of MalwareBytes right now because I think that was what fixed it, but then again, I really don't know.

I have no idea how the hell I got a virus on that thing too. I only use it to check my work in IE8 which involves some GH breaks. I really don't think I got it here though.

[ch_123]

Any time I see "IE" in the description of the problem, I stop reading.

[hyperlinked]

Any time I see "IE" in the description of the problem, I stop reading.

LOL. I wish I could do the same. I'm real careful not to use IE for anything except checking my work, which is why I'm so surprised I got infected though all it takes is one minute of not paying attention to go somewhere mean.

I have a Dell Latitude D600 with IE6, an ASUS netbook used for IE8 checks, and a virtual PC with IE7. Each of them does their own thing. I hate them all. There is rarely a difference in my sites when I check them on any version of a Mozilla browser regardless of version or computer. Safari's usually good too.

[didjamatic]

All browsers are a PITA.  Best antivirus I've ever used is Sophos in the enterprise, but would recommend MSE for home users since it's free and supported if your windows is legit.  Kaspersky is great, their detection is so early it really makes you wonder if they are in on the engineering of the viruses.  For removal of an already infected system, Malwarebytes is fantastic.

[Arc'xer]

I've found MSE to be great a lot better than AVG. Used a considerable amount of resources in some cases hitting 85-100K average. Only negative is the somewhat slow update time could just be an issue with lack of optimization of the update server or the traffic of other people updating.

Been using a combination of MSE as both scanner and real-time protection. With SuperAntiSpyware(been recommended over spybot since spybots has fallen by the way side) and Malwarebytes for additional scans without real-time protection for SAS and MBAM.

I haven't even had any conflicts or any issues and I've caught or prevented a few including that rogue installer that has affected XP, Vista, Win 7. The smart super anti-virus that acts like an official anti-virus program.

[iMav]

McAfee endpoint protection (ePO-managed virusscan, anti-spyware, anti-malware, Artemis, etc...not the consumer offerings) is top notch.  

Of course, I am a bit biased.

[EverythingIBM]

ITS NOT MADE BY IBM LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111111

I actually did have some "IBM antivirus" on my aptiva. I hate aptivas, I threw it out, yes, I threw out an IBM computer.

And I agree that AVG is getting quite bloaty; but I used it back when it worked on windows 98 in 256 colours. It ran great!

[ch_123]

I remember I had to install some McAfee enterprise AV on my laptop when I started college to get onto the network. The thing turned a C2D laptop with 4GB of RAM into a snail... Even uninstalling it afterwards didn't get undo the damage, and I had to wipe XP to get my laptop's performance back (at least when running Windows anyway)

Admittedly it was an old version (I can't remember quite how old but it definitely wasn't anything near recent), but my experience with them over the years has convinced me that all these big-name AVs are as bad as each other.

I actually did have some "IBM antivirus" on my aptiva. I hate aptivas, I threw it out, yes, I threw out an IBM computer.

Yeah, I had an Aptiva many moons ago... it was pretty **** alright. It had Norton on it IIRC.

[kishy]

Protection software that in one way or another has proven itself to be bad, in my own experience:

(does not distinguish versions at all - some were old, some were new, some are "enterprise", some are "home", and so forth. not in any order at all)

• McAfee
• Norton
• Avast
• AVG Free
• Comodo, but far less than others...I still recommend this to anyone who wants a s/w firewall
• ClamWin

I recommend MSE over any of these for antivirus purposes alone. Comodo's firewall is pretty nice and since they more or less merged it with their AV, the two go as a pair in my recommendation for them if you want a nice SW firewall (when needing to install software which phones home, but you know the phone home will only result in bad things...)

[ch_123]

Software firewalls? I almost forgot they existed... I find my routers filter out most of the crap coming in, and common sense filters the stuff that goes out...

[kishy]

Software firewalls? I almost forgot they existed... I find my routers filter out most of the crap coming in, and common sense filters the stuff that goes out...

Common sense can't specifically block a particular install wizard from going out.

[ch_123]

Use an OS with a package manager; profit.

[kishy]

Use an OS with a package manager; profit.

But it's harder to pirate software on *nix!

Not that I would partake in such illegal and unethical behaviour...

[Mith]

Ehh, I got same warnings from several pages here.
I'm also running Avast.

Some stuff on someone's signature might be false positive?

[ch_123]

Yup, y'all need better AV.

[hyperlinked]

McAfee endpoint protection (ePO-managed virusscan, anti-spyware, anti-malware, Artemis, etc...not the consumer offerings) is top notch.  

Of course, I am a bit biased.

LOL, do you work for McAfee or deploy their suite for enterprises?

[ch_123]

LOL, do you work for McAfee or deploy their suite for enterprises?

I think he has said elsewhere that he works for them.

[ironcoder]

Any time I see "IE" in the description of the problem, I stop reading.

Ditto. The best AV is just not running Windows.

[HaaTa]

ditto? Isn't that a Pokemon?

Gotta cat'chem all!!!
erm, AV software suites...

[ch_123]

I was never really into Pokemon, but wasn't Ditto the one that could change into other Pokemon?

[InSanCen]

Ditto. The best AV is just not running Windows.

Normally, I don't, but Photoshop sucks under wine.

[kishy]

Ditto. The best AV is just not running Windows.

Or running one of these.

[EverythingIBM]

Protection software that in one way or another has proven itself to be bad, in my own experience:

(does not distinguish versions at all - some were old, some were new, some are "enterprise", some are "home", and so forth. not in any order at all)

• McAfee
• Norton
• Avast
• AVG Free
• Comodo, but far less than others...I still recommend this to anyone who wants a s/w firewall
• ClamWin

I recommend MSE over any of these for antivirus purposes alone. Comodo's firewall is pretty nice and since they more or less merged it with their AV, the two go as a pair in my recommendation for them if you want a nice SW firewall (when needing to install software which phones home, but you know the phone home will only result in bad things...)

I tried microsoft security essentials or whatever it is, and it found NO viruses whatsoever (and there were viruses on the computer I was scanning - it was an HP lol). It was slow too.
Norton sucks because it doesn't scan everywhere, I'll explain:
On my 300PL there was a trojan (from the now non-existing theunderdogs.org/theunderdogs.info -- loved getting DOS games from there). And so I deleted the whole "temp" folder in windows into the recycling bin, but it wouldn't let me erase the file out of the recycling bin. So I set recycling bin space to zero, and, it deleted it all right! But it was still somehow in there, AVG found it, but norton never scans the recycling bin.
And norton also deleted some important windows files.

[ch_123]

Or running one of these.

Show Image

Some kind of mildew/damp rot could affect the cardboard.

I tried microsoft security essentials or whatever it is, and it found NO viruses whatsoever (and there were viruses on the computer I was scanning - it was an HP lol). It was slow too.

I've used this pic far too often over the past few months, but it is the only that can sum up my feelings sometimes -

[hyperlinked]

I've used this pic far too often over the past few months, but it is the only that can sum up my feelings sometimes -

But if it was lavender, it'd be faster and wouldn't get viruses. Lavender has a proven anti-viral effect.

What the hell is that pic from?

[Rajagra]

American's don't get irony.

They use it all the time. They just don't realise it. Like when they say "I could care less" when they mean "I couldn't care less." If you point out their error they sometimes claim they were being deliberately ironic (but we all know it wasn't intentional.)

Then there's that thing where they call a game football when they carry the ball in their hands mostly.

Or "have a nice day."  The list goes on. :usa::peace:

[kishy]

"I could care less" when they mean "I couldn't care less."

Glad I'm not the only person who has noticed this particular type of ignorance.

[ironcoder]

Or running one of these.

Show Image

That's a pretty green setup, Kishy!

[bhtooefr]

Of course, McAfee Endpoint Protection was the one that nuked svchost.exe on quite a few XP SP3 machines.

[iMav]

Of course, McAfee Endpoint Protection was the one that nuked svchost.exe on quite a few XP SP3 machines.

Shhhhhh!

[itlnstln]

It was iMav's fault.  He got tired of all the Apple bashing.

[microsoft windows]

You all know, that would make my arm tired.

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

Apple should change its logo to something that can't be bashed.

[microsoft windows]

How about somebody just launches Steve Jobs and Crapple to Mars and we won't have to deal with them again.

[ch_123]

How about somebody just launches Steve Jobs and Crapple to Mars and we won't have to deal with them again.

Can we do that to you instead?

[kishy]

Can we do that to you instead?

I dunno CH...I'd rather have MW around than Steve Jobs.

[ch_123]

You can say what you want about Apple and it's crazy arrogance, but do you think, for example, MP3 players would be so common if the iPod hadn't blasted them into the stratosphere? Or what about computer GUIs? The list is quite long really.

They do make some very questionable products, but they have, and will continue to give the tech industry a well needed kick up the arse every now and then.

[Rajagra]

You can say what you want about Apple and it's crazy arrogance, but do you think, for example, MP3 players would be so common if the iPod hadn't blasted them into the stratosphere?

Yes.

[ch_123]

My understanding is that they were around for quite a long time before the iPod, and no one wanted them.

[InSanCen]

You can say what you want about Apple and it's crazy arrogance, but do you think, for example, MP3 players would be so common if the iPod hadn't blasted them into the stratosphere? Or what about computer GUIs? The list is quite long really.

They do make some very questionable products, but they have, and will continue to give the tech industry a well needed kick up the arse every now and then.

As popular? Probably not. Still popular? Yes. Both myself, and many non-geeky non-techie friends and acquaintances had them well before Apple brought out the iPod. That said, when used without bloody iTunes (Winamp works well), it's a good product.

Ironic thing is, I use a Palm Tungsten E2 as my media player now... No other use for it.

[kishy]

As popular? Probably not. Still popular? Yes. Both myself, and many non-geeky non-techie friends and acquaintances had them well before Apple brought out the iPod. That said, when used without bloody iTunes (Winamp works well), it's a good product.

Ironic thing is, I use a Palm Tungsten E2 as my media player now... No other use for it.

iTunes is a truly miserable piece of software. I really can't wrap my head around how so many people just use it without complaint.

Oh well...simple, featureless, poorly designed software for people of the same nature, I suppose.

[ch_123]

Depends on how much you expect of your music software. If you just want something that lets you search through your collection and play some songs, it's grand.

I regret buying my iPod, it's a terrible piece of crap.