XP Antivirus
Uncle Bob is angry today. The Internet should be a fun and safe place. What a crock! (Although what it says is true, this link has strong profanity.)
Hal the Hacker was busy, so I had to help Teenie on my own. She got her fingers on the "XP Antivirus" software. It's vicious. And why was Teenie surprised by this, after all I've taught her? Well... "The new XP antivirus 2008, that hit the World Wide Web computers in March, is a major update to its predecessor. By calling it "major update" I mean that XP anti virus became more violent, more resilient, more immune to removal attempts, more "intelligent"; now it's recovering itself after being removed via Add and Remove Programs option in Windows Control Panel...This year's XP antivirus is more colourful, too, and features same interface as many legitimate antispyware software tools. It's totally understandable why even senior computer users install this rogue antivirus blindly believing to be protected and secure, while in reality they leave the gates of their computer wide open for a new flood of malware to come in and take control of the PC." I found that write-up here.
So this beastie pretends to be your friend, but you probably clicked on something and got it installed. If you haven't, don't. But you still may be tricked into installing this monstrosity. All it does is try to sell itself. What does it do, precisely? It give false errors, for one. You have problems, you have viruses! Liar!
"As you can see this program is fraudware in that makes changes on your computer and then states these changes are infections as a scare tactic to have you purchase the software. It goes without saying that under no circumstances should you buy it. The program does come with a removal option in the computer's Add or Remove Programs list, but when you attempt to uninstall it, all that happens is the entry is removed from the list and program's process is terminated. Next time you reboot, XP AntiVirus will start up again." The instructions for how to remove the farging bastich are found here, about halfway down the page. I believe that the part about scanning with Panda was a sales pitch. I couldn't connect with Panda, and the unintall instructions worked just fine. But I did follow up with Ad-Aware, just to be certain.
So, XP Antivirus and Vista Antivirus, it's brother, are not your friends. Kill them. Follow the advice in the links I gave you. I use good safety software, and I'm sure many of you do, too. But things like this can still sneak up on you. I've had to find detailed removal instructions before — wait, was that for me, or for someone else?
Hey, XP fiends! My favorite goomah has a present for you. Don't come around her any more, capice?
Addendum 7-31-2008: I found something else that should be useful on this subject here.
Addendum 8-28-2008: Here's yet another useful piece.
Hal the Hacker was busy, so I had to help Teenie on my own. She got her fingers on the "XP Antivirus" software. It's vicious. And why was Teenie surprised by this, after all I've taught her? Well... "The new XP antivirus 2008, that hit the World Wide Web computers in March, is a major update to its predecessor. By calling it "major update" I mean that XP anti virus became more violent, more resilient, more immune to removal attempts, more "intelligent"; now it's recovering itself after being removed via Add and Remove Programs option in Windows Control Panel...This year's XP antivirus is more colourful, too, and features same interface as many legitimate antispyware software tools. It's totally understandable why even senior computer users install this rogue antivirus blindly believing to be protected and secure, while in reality they leave the gates of their computer wide open for a new flood of malware to come in and take control of the PC." I found that write-up here.
So this beastie pretends to be your friend, but you probably clicked on something and got it installed. If you haven't, don't. But you still may be tricked into installing this monstrosity. All it does is try to sell itself. What does it do, precisely? It give false errors, for one. You have problems, you have viruses! Liar!
"As you can see this program is fraudware in that makes changes on your computer and then states these changes are infections as a scare tactic to have you purchase the software. It goes without saying that under no circumstances should you buy it. The program does come with a removal option in the computer's Add or Remove Programs list, but when you attempt to uninstall it, all that happens is the entry is removed from the list and program's process is terminated. Next time you reboot, XP AntiVirus will start up again." The instructions for how to remove the farging bastich are found here, about halfway down the page. I believe that the part about scanning with Panda was a sales pitch. I couldn't connect with Panda, and the unintall instructions worked just fine. But I did follow up with Ad-Aware, just to be certain.
So, XP Antivirus and Vista Antivirus, it's brother, are not your friends. Kill them. Follow the advice in the links I gave you. I use good safety software, and I'm sure many of you do, too. But things like this can still sneak up on you. I've had to find detailed removal instructions before — wait, was that for me, or for someone else?
Hey, XP fiends! My favorite goomah has a present for you. Don't come around her any more, capice?
Addendum 7-31-2008: I found something else that should be useful on this subject here.
Addendum 8-28-2008: Here's yet another useful piece.
Comments
Wish I'd seen these instructions B4 the last reformat :-(