Who has AVG anti-virus?

Rick Lee · Rick Lee's Garage

I got it on the recommendations of several here and it has been great up until last week. I've been getting killed with trojan horses, spyware, viruses, my email is showing as several days in the future. WTF? Every time I do a scan and move stuff to the vault or delete it, I do another scan and it still comes up with lots of bad things. Do I need to buy the upgrade or what?

robs944 · robs944's Garage

Hey Rick,
Don't use it, tried once before but hosed up my xp box. I have heard good things about it though.

It may not be able to remove/quarantine the bad stuff because it may be running a process that AVG can't kill. Try and reboot into safe mode and run AVG, usually those "suspect" processes, will not load in safe mode.

sscates · sscates's Garage

Mine popped up and said that the AVG license had expired. Had something to do with the six month period from when it was started. If your computer doesn't update it automatically you will have to go and do it.

HardDrive · 01-06-2008, 08:10 PM

I have been using it for about 6 months and I have been pretty happy with it.

Its not perfect, but McCrappy and Snortin have become monsterous unusable pigs.

968rz · 968rz's Garage

I've been using it for a few years without issue, every once in awhile it needs to be updated and the wording makes it sound like you need to buy it but no, just upgrade it for the free version.
As for the crap getting past, are you sure it wasn't there before you installed AVG and it is now being found?

Turn off system restore (all restore points will be lost but virus's hide there and this is the only way to get them), restart in safe mode and run the full system scan (deleteing anything found) then reboot to normal and turn system restore back on.

Rick Lee · Rick Lee's Garage

Can you please refresh my memory on how to start in safe mode and run a scan that way? Thanks.

Mule · 01-07-2008, 05:16 AM

It's a good package. As I've said here before, Avast is the best I've ever used. Effective and innocuous, low resource usage & 100% automatic.

robs944 · robs944's Garage

First as 968rz said turn off system restore-
Goto > Start > Settings >Control Panel > Double click the "System" Icon
When that window opens click on the System Restore tab, click on "Turn off system restore on all drives" click ok and yes to confirm.

Reboot PC, as PC is rebooting (before the XP screen loads) hit the F8 key to bring up boot options, select "Safe Mode" (this may take a couple of attempts)

Once PC is up and running in Safe Mode launch your AVG program or open My Computer and right click your local drive and select the option that starts a scan.

After it is done reboot normally, go back and turn System Restore back on. You can run another AVG scan to see if it worked.

Rick Lee · Rick Lee's Garage

Thanks. Will do tonight.

equality72521 · 01-07-2008, 05:39 AM

I've used it for several years now with great success.

azasadny · azasadny's Garage

Rick,
Sounds like the "Storm worm" or some variant of it may have shut off the AVG allowing other malware onto your PC. Storm can make AVG or other A/V software "appear" to be functioning, but they are disabled.

Rick Lee · Rick Lee's Garage

Art, that very well may be. Is there a special fix for that one other than running in safe mode?

azasadny · azasadny's Garage

Rick,
I'd do a Google search because the tools used to clean a PC are constantly being updated. I don't have a specific tool that I can recommend and I haven't see the "Storm Worm" firsthand, I've been reading the SANS daily reports (part of my job).

Rick Lee · Rick Lee's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by robs944

First as 968rz said turn off system restore-
Goto > Start > Settings >Control Panel > Double click the "System" Icon
When that window opens click on the System Restore tab, click on "Turn off system restore on all drives" click ok and yes to confirm.

Reboot PC, as PC is rebooting (before the XP screen loads) hit the F8 key to bring up boot options, select "Safe Mode" (this may take a couple of attempts)

Once PC is up and running in Safe Mode launch your AVG program or open My Computer and right click your local drive and select the option that starts a scan.

After it is done reboot normally, go back and turn System Restore back on. You can run another AVG scan to see if it worked.

Ok, just did this and, while still in Safe Mode, my AVG screen said the resident shield was not on. And clicking on that, the option to turn it on was greyed out. I rebooted and turned system restore back on and the AVG screeen said everything fine, all icons green. I'm doing another scan now, but I suspect I'll just find more spyware and no viruses. BTW, I cannot set my desktop wallpaper to anything but a blue screen. My photos won't take.

greglepore · 01-08-2008, 03:58 AM

Had something similar get in my computer the other week. Cleaned it with superantispyware, then reinstalled avg and all was fine.

Joeaksa · 01-08-2008, 04:11 AM

Are you also using SpyBot or AdAware? Need to use one or both of the AND a good virus program to stay on top of them.

Other thing you can do is to boot the computer off of a floppy or CD and then run a virus scan. That way you are guaranteed that there is no virus resident in the system as long as the boot device is clean.

Have used AVG for years and works well so far. First thing I do on a new computer is delete Norton or other programs. They were good years ago but are memory hogs now.

joe

Rick Lee · Rick Lee's Garage

Is Superantispyware free?

When I first started quarantining "threats" a week or so ago, I think I may have removed some driver that has to do with my desktop wallpaper, as I cannot change it from plain blue anymore. So I probably need to use the boot disc to get it back. Not sure how to do that though.

Sonic dB · Sonic dB's Garage

Try Avast Free program and also www.lavasoft.com has a great free program called AdAware that kicks butt.

These virus' almost always put a file in the C:/Windows/System32 folder...
what I do when I suspect a virus, is go there, hit view by modified date and then the last column at the bottom of the page will have the most recently added files there...right click on those and you will see the date that those were added...usually they have an odd name such as "daerfdxx.dll"

you can copy the name and Google it and you usually will get info on whether that is a virus or not..

another thing you can do is Ctrl/Alt/Delete and check the running processes on your system... lots of virus and spamware go by weird names such as "biz.exe" etc. and you can Google those as well..

Run Avast or AdAware software on Startup that way these files can get deleted before they boot up in your OS...

a Final thing you can do which usually works is do a System Restore to a prior date so that all programs installed after that date (including spyware) are rendered Moot...

Go Start/Accessories/Systemtools/SystemRestore for that

Rick Lee · Rick Lee's Garage

Problem is that I've downloaded and saved plenty of stuff in the last week, most importantly, virus and spyware updates. Isn't there just some way to run a virus scan that will get rid of all the $hit that's bad for my computer? I know that sounds ridiculous. But I don't know how to identify system32 stuff with weird names or how to skip over stuff I need to keep my OS working properly. Pretty sure I deleted something that allows me to change my wallpaper.

Sonic dB · Sonic dB's Garage

Generally the virus scans and adware scans will catch the virus/spyware...however in a lot of cases, if the spyware program is currently running...then the executable file can not be deleted.

In those cases, it is best to do a reboot of the computer, and run the scanner prior to the actual restarting of Windows.... this is good because the scanner can catch and delete the spyware executable before it has a chance to get started after Windows has booted up.

Most scanners have the ability to schedule a boot-up scan....and this is prefered to clean the system out currently....then keep you scanner going during the normal course to try and catch virus as they come..

One note about Avast, it does a great job catching virus in the process (sirens go off and a voice yells "Caution!!!") but even if you choose "Abort Connection" sometimes the Virus still gets through! So when that happens you had better schedule a boot up scan!

PS: I know most of this due to my getting victimized last year with identity theft...where someone go a hold of some personal information and tried to hijack a good deal of money from an ETrade bank account that I had.... I could never prove anything but it was recommended to me by security specialists that some screenshot or key-stroke logging virus had gotten onto my system enabling the criminals to get my personal information.... and I did find a virus in a scan following that incident....