[coastie65]

Hi Flashorn, When I " uninstalled " 7.5, it was done during the process of upgrading to 8.0. When I decided I didn't particularly care for 8.0, I just used add/ remove programs. Unlike norton, it seemed to do ok. I then Installed avast and I am starting to like that thing as it really stays in the background. coastie

[Flashorn]

Hey coastie!!



Thankx for the info.

I guess I will use the REVO uninstaller like I did for AVG Antispyware

In the Hunter mode , it really does take away all of the registry entries,

You do have to look at what you are deleting but, so far it does what

it is suppose to do.



thankx again.





FLASHORN.

[coastie65]

Hey, I guess it got it all, but I guess I ought to check to be sure. I don't think AVG is like Norton or McAfee in that respect. I used Add / Remove with Norton and still had to get the removal tool as that thing was all over the place. I used Windows search and was still uncovering Norton stuff after using their tool. Just did a search with windows explorer, and there was some remnants of avg left. Deleted them and ran CClean. That took care of things. coastie

[Flashorn]

Hey coastie!!



Well, I did uninstall AVG AntiVirus with REVO.

Even with a search, it couldn't find any remnants of AVG.



I did install Avira, ran a full scan and it came up with this entry

SPR/Tool.PV. So I did a search on Google and the search

revealed that this file belonged to ComboFix, which I used to

eradicate a nastie not to long ago.

This file can only be deleted with a special CMD which I found

while searching on CastleCops forum.

The scanning session for a full scan of my HDD took longer than with

AVG for the same size of HDD. About 1/2 hour longer,but made a

deeper scan.



Now, after I rebooted my PC , I lost the icons in the notification area

for WinPatrol and Unlocker. I also lost the icon for Avira the new

AntiVirus.



So, I uninstalled the new AntiVirus and again rebooted my PC.

The icons for both my programs came back. So once again I

installed Avira and Again I lost the icons for WinPatrol and Unlocker.



It's to bad, because I really liked the interface for Avira, but,

it had to go. I like my WinPatrol and Unlocker to much

to chose between Avira and them, I uninstalled Avira for the last time.



I finally installed AVG 8.0 . Now, everything is working fine and working well

together.

The only complaint so far is that your system resources take a hit.

I will see in the next few days how this all plays out and if there is no more conflicts

I will most likely use this version for a while.





FLASHORN.

[coastie65]

Hey Flashorn, I was over at PC World Canada when you checked in. Looks like you got put through the drill. I was already running webroot spysweeper and it has a long list of shields, such as anti hijackers and keyloggers and such. The thing in 8.0 was pretty much bare bones for the free version, so didn't want to use it and I couldn't disable it, so I uninstalled it and added Superantispyware, plus Avast for my AV. So far I've been pretty happy with avast. It stays in the background, but you'll get a pop up in the tray and a voice telling you it has been updated. Don't know if I can use AVG's anti rootkit thing or not. May look in to that later. coastie

[Flashorn]

Hey coastie!!



YES, I got put through the drill. I must have rebooted about 7 or 8 times in the

space of four hours.

But, I got everything back on track, and so far so good.



If you would like to check out this new site that I found ,

it contains a slew of free apps. for your enjoyment.

Freebyte.com



And yes you can use AVG's Antiroot kit ,but, I would

suggest a better one from F-Secure.

I have been using this one for the last 2 years almost.

It was a beta when I first found it and F-Secure said that it was terminating

the availability of this program.

Then , they said that we all had a reprieve.

It is still in beta but, works so well and is considered the best AntiRoot Kit out there.

The site is F-Secure.com.



On this page , in the middle is a OnlineScanner and at the Bottom of the page

you will see a Download button, right below is the BlackLight AntiRoot Kit.

Enjoy.





FLASHORN.

[coastie65]

Hey Flashorn, Will definately check these out. Thanx. I was over at PC World Canada, but they are lagging somewhat behind. The site is somewhat buggy as it seems you have to keep logging in after you already have. It is also structured differently and has a different feel to it. It takes some getting used to, that's for sure. I noticed that snorg has been there as well. That was the first time I had visited since March. I don't think it gets much traffic. There were 11 lurkers and I was the only one signed in. Oh well, it's worth a look from time to time I guess. Anyway, thanx again for the links. coastie

[mphenterprises]

Hi Flashorn. I just did the update this morning in both Windows XP and Windows Vista. Within Windows XP, I also had AVG Anti-Rootkit. According to this Grisoft alert, AVG Anti-Rootkit is now only available within the paid version of AVG Internet Security.

Also, there is a new feature when upgrading to AVG 8.0. Take a look at this screen shot:







Look at the green check marks next to each hyperlink result. AVG now includes LinkScanners. According to the description, LinkScanner blocks dangerous websites and checks links of the most popular search engines for threats.

[coastie65]

Hi mph, Flashorn posted some good alternatives. I downloaded and ran BlackLight last night. It ran pretty smooth and was pretty quick. coastie

[Flashorn]

Hey MPH!!



I did up-grade to 8.0 but, the performance hit that you get is well, Allot more than with the 7.5 .

I'm sure that's because the AntiSpyware is integrated with the new program.



If you have 4 GIGs of ram ,I guess, you don't mind a little more power drain but

for those of us who only have 1 or 2 GIGs well, that extra drain on your resources

can be somewhat damaging.



I had installed Avira and to tell you the truth , if it wasn't for the fact that my

favorite programs "WinPatrol and Unlocker" were affected by Avira, I would most certainly be

with that program right now.

The drain was almost not noticible with Avira And the scanning is deeper, more effective

and it did find a file that was still on my PC.

This file did belong to ComboFix and was a tool to disable and clean a Trojan that it removed.

But, it did act like a Trojan, so, their Heuristic scan does work well.

This file is well documented in the Avira forum and in CastleCops and also

in the excelent forum at Atribune.org



This is part of the post:



EDIT: Antivir is done, nothing else to report, but I have one
question: I have a ton of stuff in my quarantine including two
instances of Vundo and a couple of worms called WORM/Small.1.2 and
WORM/Small.1.35, which I got a long time ago. How can I get rid of this
stuff safely? The delete button say "delete FROM QUARANTINE", does that
mean it kills them or does it put it somewhere else?
EDIT: I
rebooted the computer and I'm running Antivir again to see if the
TR/Trash.gen replicated after I deleted it, and once again, antivir is
telling me that Combofix.exe is a virus, I hit ignore again, but I
noticed that something called SPR/Tool.PV showed up as the "last
detected" after it gave me the message about combofix being a threat.
is SPR/Tool.PV a part of combofix or is that something that suckered onto it and needs to be killed?
EDIT:
I just went into the Antivir log and read the location of the
TR/Trash.gen to be in the combofix quarantine, so I think it's been
taken care of, but how do I clean all this stuff out for good?




This is were I found the CMD to delete the rest of ComboFix on your PC

thus eliminating the reporting of this file.

Avira IS the only scanner that I have used to detect this file. I have allot of confidence in this

scanner. Even though I used it only twice. I did read about the effectiveness of the AntiVirus

program. I will show you another instance of this :



This is from Gizmo's 46best.com





{font:Arial}{size:2}If you are looking for the best possible protection, my top recommendation is Avira AntiVir Personal Edition.
Although its detection rate is outstanding, there are some
reservations. First, it lacks the email scanning feature that is only
available in the paid version. This means that AntiVir won't warn you
of infected emails before you open them. However, should you open an
infected email, AntiVir will still spring into action, so the absence
of an email scanner doesn't mean you are not protected from email-based
infections. My second reservation is that AntiVir is quite an intrusive
product - you will certainly be well aware of its presence. Finally,
AntiVir Personal Edition Classic has a time limited license. It is
renewable, but be aware that you will have to periodically go through
the hoops. The latest version includes anti-rootkit and a faster scan
rate.{size}{font}

{font:Arial}{size:2}If you are not prepared to accept the drawbacks to AntiVir, I would suggest either AVG Antivirus Free Edition or the Avast!
scanner. Neither is quite as effective in detection as AntiVir, but
they are both more complete products, and less intrusive in use.{size}{font}



As you can see, he acknowledges AVG and Avast but, as far as detection rate Avira would come out on top.

I did not want to part with the Programs that I mentioned earlier because they are part of my

"Layered" security.

WinPatrol is amazing. NOTHING installs or starts with ought you being warned by WinPatrol.



Now , as far as the LinkScanner is concerned, if, you had "McAfee SiteAdvisor" installed

in your browser( IE7 or Firefox ) you would of had this kind of protection a long time ago



Here take a Look :



!05-11-200805-11-2008CropperCapture2].Png!





As you can see, I now have DOUBLE protection.


You can clearly see the Star from the Linkscanner AND the Green circle with check mark from McAfee.





I think this is over the top. AVG should have stuck with better detection solutions


instead of threading in other companies water hole.





The best AntiRoot Kit is from Panda


Again take a look at [Gizmo's



Now , if you would like to take a look at this site RootKit Unhooker.

Apparently this is the evolution and up and coming AntiRootKit.



You can also read about it on this Blog



Hell, did I have allot to say today?

I guess you bring out the fighter in me MPH.LOL!!!!





FLASHORN.

[coastie65]

Whew !!! That was alot, but interesting none-the-less. As I've said in the past, "Free" fits my budget quite nicely, particularly with a good product. coastie

[mphenterprises]

Hi Coastie. Oh, I was not mentioning this because I was concerned. I was just providing some additional information. Honestly, I barely feel the difference. :D

[mphenterprises]

LOL Hi Flashorn. :D

Flashorn said:

I guess you bring out the fighter in me MPH.LOL!!!!

>
>



Well, I guess that is a good thing, huh? :D I definitely do not feel any ill-effects of 8.0. I will definitely check out some of the anti-rootkit applications you listed.

Flashorn said:

If you have 4 GIGs of ram ,I guess, you don't mind a little more power drain

>
>


Well, I have 2GBs of DDR3 memory which, at least to me, feels like 3 or 4GBs of DDR2 memory. I am about to install another GB of DDR3 to bring my total to 3GBs; however, this is besides the point.

[rgreen4]

When I fired up my Media Center today AVG had trouble updating, possible because of cloud cover (satellite) but it was going anyway. I deleted it from the control panel and installed Avast.

Coastie - when you installed Avast with XP you still got the voice? I only have the voice on my Vista machines. I have one more XP machine to go, so I will see if I get it there.

[Flashorn]

Hey rgreen!!


I read somewhere on the Avast site that you only get the voice in Vista.

In XP you get the message and thats all.



Could you do me a favor PLZ. If not to much trouble ,

could you post the amount of memory that Avast is using.



I find that AVG is using WAY to much of my resources to keep this thing around.

I was hoping that I could find a way around the misgivings with Avira,

cause I really liked that one.

But, unfortunately I had to dump it as well.



So , if this is not an inconvenience, I would really appreciate the help.







FLASHORN.

[coastie65]

Hey rg, Yup, I got that disembodied voice. Lets me know that I have been updated and I guess anything else that it might feel is necessary. coastie

[rgreen4]

I thought you only get the voice with Vista, but Coastie swears he's hoarding copies of XP, including MCE for use after June 30. He swears he's not running Vista, yet he hears the voice. Hmmm.
As to your request - strange numbers, but here's what it's reading right now:




Wild numbers! I'm not sure how Task Manager on my XP Pro machine came up with 3,414M for the total memory when it physically only has 2 1GB modules. Now my machine with Gigabyte MB does have 4 1GB modules. It started out at 2, but Newegg had a good sale on the exact match modules for 1/2 of what I paid for the first 2, so I future proofed it.
The only think I can think of is that the D530 has a P4 3.2 GHZ with hyper threading and dual channel memory and that may be throwing Task Manager off. So much for the Vista memory hogs, eh!

[rgreen4]

Does that machine have XP MCE?

[coastie65]

Yup, I have no intention of getting caught short after June 30 and I did indeed get a voice. kinda spooky but I'll get used to it. coastie

[coastie65]

Yup. :D Its listed in my signature :D coastie