beware of spyware

[Dblackman]

I just spent the last 2 days trying to get rid of a fake antivirus called Antimalware doctor that somehow made its way to my computer. It looks like a legit software, but trust me it isnt. It will turn off almost every way to get rid of it. changed my internet settings so that none of my browsers would connect and locked me out of the computers registry. It blocks real antiviruses from running right and just gets in the way. It main purpose is to get you to "buy" the full version with your credit card, and the rest is history.

Just wanted to warn everybody.


David

[Bass_Bug]

I had to clean that off my son's and my nephew's computers. Power off the sytem and boot to the restore system menu. then choose the restore point for the day before it started. after it completed and a re-boot or two, the computers were back to normal. I think both of those just didn't have the up to date virus definitions in their AV software.

[Cold]

Use Malwarebytes. It works.

[tlerm]

Use Malwarebytes. It works.

I have also used Malwarebytes with success to get rid of a similar fake antivirus program. It worked for me too.

[Bass_Bug]

Any of the top aniti-virus/malware software will do just fine. The key is keeping them updated. Even the best is useless if it's out of date.

[Fatman]

Versions of that fake Anti-virus show up every 3 months or so. And yeah at first it's a pain to clean out

Fatman

[jeffro]

Yep it happened to me last week so i now have and recommend MalwareBytes.com...... its even free and seems to work well.

[Byron Zuehlsdorff]

I just got my laptop redone because of it. It also bit one of the puters here at work, they replaced the hard drive. The desktop puter at home had the hard drive crash the day before my lap top BUT I can use the one here, at work, When I am at work. Malware didn't stop it on mine though it did contain it enough that I did not lose the whole puter.

[randyflycaster]

I've used Superanti Spyware for years, as well as Malware.

Randy

[Clay]

I run Spysweeper on my computer and have for the last 3 years and like it. It teams up well with McAfee.

Short story (don't believe the part about being short) - My parents have a grandson living with them and their AV was not up to date so I purchased and installed the latest version of McAfee for them. The day after the install, problems started to occur. I go over and check and see that a new program was installed after I installed McAfee at 3 am in the morning.

Well the parents were definitely sleeping at that time and I check the history of the computer only to find a few questionable sites visited along with a new program that claimed to have found a major virus. After more research I find out that the program popped up while visiting a "questionable" site. Not only did it announce that it found a major virus but to fix it, you had to uninstall McAfee which the kid then said OK to. At the point the real virus became invasive and a restore point change did not fix the virus.

It was a LOOOOOONG process to get their machine back up and running. You have to be able to discern the difference between your AV software giving you a message and the malicious software giving you a message.