Don’t really have an article to comment on this time. Instead let me add a little something that jumped in my lap. Or maybe you could say, jumped on my computer. It may be that you too run into this and after reading about it here, you will have the answers on how to remove it.
My little episode began with my antivirus running out. So I thought I would try another with an equivalent level of protection. Sadly, the new antivirus would not install without removing the firewall in place. I started then just to go back to what I knew worked except trying new stuff is how you find out about how good one product is over another. Or just call me reckless at heart.
After the new antivirus was installed, I was off to find a new firewall. So I happened up on PC Tools Firewall (which you will pardon if I don’t give you the address in the interests of not spreading more malware). PC Tools Firewall is not hosted for download at their own home site but rather they pass off the job to CNet. Once I got the program in I went ahead and installed the software firewall. So far, so good.
A few hours later I started noticing the LAN speed was slowing down considerably. Oh, it was still usable but not near where it normally is. This was my first clue something was wrong. Shortly after that I wanted to take a look at PC and Network traffic graphics in Task Manager. Only Task Manager wouldn’t come up. It stalled on the working icon and remained there, never actually bringing up Task Manager. I knew then I had picked up something for sure. I also found I could not search for antivirus sites and the malware cleaners and antivirus (all up to date on definitions) couldn’t be pulled up either.
So off to safe mode I went with a reboot. Malwarebytes showed it to be Affiliate Downloader as the guilty party. It removed it and I removed the installation of the PC Tools Firewall. Returning back to regular mode, I found Task Manager once again available. As a precaution I went ahead and ran all programs again, just to check. Everything was clean and Task Manager remained available for the several hours I was watching it close. As a double check, I went back and reinstalled the PC Tools Firewall to verify it was infected as the Downloader program was fairly simple to dispose of. Sure enough it was there in the execute file. So I cleaned it one more time in safe mode and deleted the software firewall.
Don’t go looking for the current and latest version, from their home page. The firewall appeared to be a rather simple program with none of the advanced features you would expect from a full featured software firewall and it’s tailoring to your uses is rather limited.
Pass on this one, it isn’t worth it.
Interesting. The barrier between good and malware programs is getting thinner. There is malware with a “good” behaviour- those who remove other competitor trojans from an infected PC, I guess very soon we will see more and more “good” software with a malicious behaviour. Money, of course…
I know I am responding to a fairly old post….but I think it will be helpful…here goes
I downloaded a pdf conversion freeware from CNET and some really nasty malware got installed on my computer. There was nothing I could do and was locked out I had to do a complete recovery and lost all my data.
Now if I want to get freeware and CNET (or even TechRepublic) list it. I take the name and go to the publisher’s website to download it after verifying that it is explicitly stated that their freeware is free of malware, spyware etc.
I find SourceForge pretty good. But there is a twist in most new freeware installations (including those from SourceForge) i.e. the installation defaults to making some page your homepage, installing it’s toolbar and a few other things. The options are “Decline” or “Accept”. Very clever, because it makes it appear that you are damned unless you choose “Accept”. The amount of postings PDF Creator (on Source Forge) has caused exactly for this reason is unbelievable. All of them assumed if you choose “Decline” they will not be able to install PDFCreator.