matthewm1965 Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 Following on from SupraGirlies thread last week about a computer virus, I hope you got it sorted in the end. I got home from work last night, fired up the laptop and connected to the net to download my email. The first thing that I noticed that was strange, was that the bottom task bar had change to white from its normal blue (windows XP). Then I noticed that the anti-virus software icon, AVG free 8.5, in the notification bar had changed colours also. Hovering the mouse pointer above this gave the balloon message “Ante Virus” instead of the normal “AVG Anti-virus Free”. I went to the start menu to start AVG, It had disappeared! Luckily I had an install application of AVG in a directory that I keep for such things. I rebooted the laptop after disabling all the startup services using msconfig. Re-installed AVG and ran a complete scan. Apart from a few dozen tracking cookies that I’m not too concerned about, it indicated that a bit of software called “flac frontend” contained a virus. I had downloaded this a couple of months ago for decoding some music files and not used it since. After another reboot and an AVG latest definitions update and another scan, everything seems to be back to normal. The thing that concerns me is that a virus has not only got past AVG without flagging anything up, but has disabled the anti-virus software and replaced its icons with fakes! AVG is supposed to be one of the better anti-virus software packages out there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 AVG is quick sucky in my experience, try it with a basic EICAR test file and it usually sits there ignoring it instead of going wild. Having said this none of the machines I have it installed on have been infected, probably more luck and common sense than anything else though. It doesn't seem to have a very good realtime monitor on it no matter what you enable, I'm guessing this is one of the downsides of the free offering. I presume you've already tried killing it with fire? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edd_t Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 may not be a virus! if it got past AVG free version it could be more spy or adware. possible adware installing it self trying to get you to download what you think would be AVG and thats when they hit you with all they have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorin Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 AVG has got worse over the years. I use Avira AntiVir now http://www.free-av.com/en/index.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthewm1965 Posted July 15, 2009 Author Share Posted July 15, 2009 may not be a virus! if it got past AVG free version it could be more spy or adware. possible adware installing it self trying to get you to download what you think would be AVG and thats when they hit you with all they have. My son got scammed by that trick. Thought he was downloading AVG, used his credit card to pay for it. The money started disapearing faster than he could catch it!! I have the fully paid for AVG on the home pc but didn't have time to put it on the laptop before I came away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caseys Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 No anti-virus software is foolproof. Even the corporate stuff which gets definition updates every 15/30 minutes can still be broken. Then again I think the way most AV software is designed to detect is kinda flawed. There's more than AVG anyway. Avast seems reasonable. Have a good firewall and alarm on, don't have any neccesary open ports and make sure you know what's installing and what it's modifying whilst installing. If you're really paranoid start having a small box running linux/ubuntu or suchlike and use it as a net proxy. Oh and don't be on the net when you don't need to be Leaving your PC on overnight with a net connection to it is just giving people more time to be able to break it. Otherwise yes, kill it with fire. Or a magnet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevie_b Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 +1 for Avast here. These days I use Linux more than Windows though, and I don't bother installing any antivirus software on Linux. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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