Top 10 Ways PUPs Sneak Onto Your Computer. And How To Avoid Them.

Disclaimer: I copied the title literally from this blog post.

And that is all I want to say here; this article is simply a MUST READ if you ever had PuPs installed or had to call me because everything got so slow or whatever problem you had.

95% or more of all computer problems I encounter nowadays are initially caused by a PuP! The authors of these PuPs have gotten very clever and constantly invent new tricks to dupe the unsuspecting computer user.

Only permanent vigilance, caution and attention to detail can ultimately somewhat protect us and our computers. 

Please note the use of the word "somewhat" in the previous paragraph! 

For the first time ever I will directly recommend a piece of commercial security software. 

If you want the IMHO best automatic protection against all kinds of malicious programs including PuPs then you will have to pay some money, currently just shy of $40 per year for a single computer. You find details about Emsisoft Anti-Malware here.

Another disclaimer: I am in no way at all associated with Emsisoft or any of their distributors or resellers!

If you don't want to pay that is fine, you just have to DIY (do it yourself). MSE or Defender in conjunction with Malwarebytes Free will do it just as well but you have to regularly do more yourself.

Whether you want to pay for Emsisoft Anti-Malware or not doesn't really matter, IMHO you simply HAVE TO READ this article.

 Stay safe.

"Free" Security programs - For A Price

I stumbled over this article on How-To-Geek.

I wan to save you the hassle and time to read this lengthy article your self and will quote a few selected and IMHO most relevant snippets.

My stance toward the remaining "free" security programs as well as the well known commercial offerings is known; I have expressed this here repeatedly. So let's begin:

1. Free antivirus applications aren’t what they used to be. Free antivirus companies are now bundling adware, spyware, toolbars, and other junk to make a quick buck.... At one point, free antivirus was just advertising, pushing users to upgrade to the paid products. Now, free antivirus companies are making money through advertising, tracking, and junkware installations.
    
2. Comodo ... change[s] your web browser’s search engine to Yahoo! and bundles the GeekBuddy paid tech support software. It also bundles other Comodo products you might not want, including changing your DNS server settings to Comodo’s servers and installing “Chromodo,” a Chromium-based browser made by Comodo. ... As the Comodo-affiliated PrivDog software contained a massive security hole similar to the one Superfish had, there’s a good chance you don’t want a bunch of other Comodo-developed software and services thrown onto your computer.
    
3. Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware pushes “Web Protection” that will “secure your online search” by setting SecureSearch as your web browser’s homepage and default search engine. Despite the name, this isn’t actually a security feature. Instead, it just switches your web browser to use a branded search engine that actually uses Yahoo! in the background — this means it’s powered by Bing.
   If you prefer Bing, that’s fine — just use the full Bing website. You’ll have a better experience than using Lavasoft’s rebranded, stripped-down search engine.
    
4. Avira encourages you to install “Avira SafeSearch Plus.” This is just a rebranded version of the Ask Toolbar, redirecting your search results through a rebranded version of Ask.com’s search engine. If you wouldn’t want the Ask Toolbar installed, you wouldn’t want this rebranded version of it installed either.
    
5. ZoneAlarm also wants you to enable “ZoneAlarm Search” as your browser’s default homepage and search engine, along with installing a ZoneAlarm toolbar that is - once again - a rebranded version of the Ask Toolbar.
    
6.  Panda {Free Antivirus] attempts to install their own browser security toolbar as well as change your browser’s search engine to Yahoo, and its home page to “MyStart,” which is powered by Yahoo. To Panda’s credit, they at least don’t attempt to trick you by offering you a renamed Yahoo search engine or home page.
    
7. avast!’s installer also tries to install additional software you might not want. We’ve seen Dropbox offered here in the past, but avast! attempted to install the Google Toolbar when we tried installing it.
   Programs like the Google Toolbar and Dropbox are high-quality software you might actually want, so avast! comes out looking very good compared to the other options here. But even avast! has done done some questionable things in the past — witness the avast! browser extension inserting itself into your online shopping.
    
8. AVG has its own suite of obnoxious utilities, including the AVG Security Toolbar, AVG Rewards, AVG Web TuneUp, and SecureSearch.
    
9. BitDefender offers a stripped-down free antivirus. ... BitDefender is still pursuing the strategy of attempting to upsell you to the paid product.
    
10. MalwareBytes doesn’t attempt to install any extra junk on your computer, although the free version doesn’t offer real-time protection. To their credit, MalwareBytes is offering a free tool that’s useful for manual scans - it even picks up and detects [and removes!] much of the adware other programs install - and encouraging you to pay for a more full-featured product.
    This tool could be quite useful in combination with another antivirus, like Microsoft’s free Windows Defender or Microsoft Security Essentials solution. But it’s not a standalone free antivirus you can depend on, as it lacks the real-time scanning.

 Not too nice a situation out there, right? You either pay up or you have to live mostly with junk you did not want in the first place.


Don't despair, a good, time proven free solution is available since about 2009.

For now over 13 years I "fix" my customer's home computers by removing all sorts of viruses and other malicious or obnoxious software. Most of my customers call themselves "computer illiterate". All of them have lived safely with mostly little or no manual effort.

The only malware infections happen now when someone "falls" for a social engineering trick; that is in effect when the customer for a moment was inattentive. And hat is just a human weakness, I know from my very own experience.

If you want to know details about this solution plese drop me a personal email; thank you.

Out Of My Support

As of this writing it has been almost eight months that I don't use or recommend

• Avast 
• AVG (since a looong time already!)
• Ad-Aware
• Spybot Search & Destroy and
• Spywareblaster

any more.

This is not because they are any "bad" but because there is something better or at least as good out there, Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE). IMHO it is for my customers the better solution and it is MUCH easier to use.

I have talked about this fact since at least October 2009 every time I was on WTKM radio (first Monday of every month at 10:00AM on 104.9 FM).

Since January 15th 2010 I have a long and detailed article about the change on my blog. This article describes detailed step by step instructions for switching to MSE.

In the blog's table of contents you can easily find all my other articles about MSE.

The short of all this is that I can not answer questions about the five programs mentioned above any longer. I simply don't use these programs any more and thus don't know the answers to questions concerning the most current versions.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

Click here for a categorized Table Of Contents.
 

Updating to Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition free (2009)

Currently Ad-Aware offers an update to Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition. You always want to keep all security programs as up-to-date as possible. To update do the following in this sequence:

1. Download the installer for the latest version of Ad-Aware from here.
2. Remove the old version.
   (XP: Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs)
   (Vista: Control Panel, Programs and Features)
3. Restart your computer.
4. Run the installer program you downloaded in step 1.
5. Do not run anything else at the same time.
   The installer will restart your computer without a warning!
6. Start Ad-Aware.
7. Close the first screen.
8. Do a Web-Update.
9. Scan your computer.
10. If all works as expected delete the downloaded installer file.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog.

Thank you in advance.

From Ad-Aware Personal SE to Ad-Aware 2008

Somehow quite a few of my customers didn't get a notification about Ad-ware Personal SE going to be discontinued. Here are instructions on how to remedy the situation.

1. Please uninstall ad-Aware Personal SE (Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs).
2. Please go to this web site and download Ad-Aware 2008, the new and improved version.
3. The download file is an installer program.
   Run it to install Ad-Aware 2008.
4. At the end of the install you will be asked for a license number;
   just click on "Use Free".
5. After the install there will be two new icons on your desktop.
   Please DELETE the icon labeled Ad-Watch; this is an attempt to suck you into paying for something extra.
6. If Ad-Aware 2008 runs okay you should delete the installer.

The new program version works much like the old one, the differences are mainly optical.

Feel free to post any comment you may have.

Thank you in advance.