Hi all!
I’m a poor silly french girl (which means ‘please do not use words I won’t understand’) and I’ve got a problem with my computer. My anti-virus informed me that there is ‘AdvWare.Gator’ on it, and that it can’t remove it 'cause it doesn’t recognize the name. Please advise me about what to do (throwing my computer at the bin isn’t an option…).
Thanks a lot!
Kitty
Click on the link in my signature and follow all steps as explained there. If you have done exactly as mentioned on that page, your system should be clean. If you still have troubles after doing so, let us know.
Are you using avast! as your antivirus product?
It seems that avast! didn’t pickup Gator in my sample files.
Also I don’t recall that Avast detects any adwares? :-\
To uninstall Gator, go to Control Panel → Add/Remove Programs → “and click on the Gator associated program and click the button to remove Gator”
You may need administrative rights to uninstall Gator if you are running NT based systems. Depending on the variant of Gator that you have installed on your computer, there might be some leftovers of Gator on your computer.
Hi Kitty
Unfortunately just using the add/remove function doesn’t totally remove Gator (Clarion)
Please go HERE for complete instructions.
Hope that helps.
Gator is classed as spyware so its not really covered by avast!..
Yea, thats sad…
I hope Avast would introduce spyware scanning in v4.5/5.
Making another provider called Spyware Control seems like a good idea.
Making another provider called Spyware Control seems like a good idea.
I feel this is a bad idea as it would distract the avast team from there primary objectife (lol sounds funny when read) which is to detect viruses/worms.
–lee
softwareguy
I guess it all depends on how you look at things. You can either continue to have av excellent AV program or, you can have another mediocre program that’s a jack of all trades and a master of none.
I used to have one of those before I found Avast! I always thought the other program was a program with No Added Value.
I for one would like to keep it that way. 
Avast is av software, just as Mcafee, Norton (nowadays Symantec) Trend and others. A common fault of users is that they think everything is a virus, but there are differences. You got viruses, trojans, spyware, adware, worms and some other things. People expect that a av software can handle them all. This is wrong thinking. Caused by a lack of knowledge (no offense) My advise: If you have a computer, take time to learn at least the basics. You have a car? You did learn how to handle it? Do the same with your system! Don’t immidiatly blame problems on the system or the software. Over 95% of the problems is caused by a lack of knowledge. I have tried to explain the differences HERE perhaps reading it clear some things up.
Yes, avast! is just like any other antivirus program. But unlike McAfee, avast! does not have any spyware detection like McAfee does.
You got viruses, trojans, spyware, adware, worms and some other things.Yes, and probably the reason why McAfee has added spyware detection into its antivirus program is because they all fall into one category: [b]Malicious Software[/b].
Well, just to clear things up. I do not want avast! to be an spyware remover like Ad-Aware is. All I want is detection of spyware files. (Such as the executable that the spyware uses to install itself.)
And since Malicious Softwares are useless to end-users and even might be harmful for them, why doesn’t an antivirus at least warn a user before anything happens to their system? This resolves a lot of problem about malwares and could make a user’s system run as smoothly as possible.
Just my opinion.
And since Malicious Softwares are useless to end-users and even might be harmful for them, why doesn't an antivirus at least warn a user before anything happens to their system?I fully agree that it is useless. But don't forget that the first line of defense is not a piece of software/hardware, but the user. More knowledge about how a system works will lead to less infected systems.
Personally I don’t run any as-/spyware remover on any of my systems. Still I know for sure that they are clean. And I only use common sense and my knowledge. Sure, not everyone has the experience and knowledge I have. And many people coulod use a little help from a piece of software, but they still need knowledge about the system. Without that, they will not be able to configure everything correctly and still get infected.
Softwareguy
Its just as easy to install a spyware scanner
Eddy
How can you be 100% sure your system is clean?, have you ever tryed any of these programs, if you buy a really good new car that works fine, then you take all safty percausions does that mean you stil don’t get insurence/MOT/road tax? , no because if something goes wrong you don’t have anything to fall back on.
–lee
lee16:
Well, why would you install a spyware cleaner while you could prevent spyware from installing at the first place?
Eddy:
Same here, I don’t use software like Ad-Aware because I’m pretty sure my system is clean of ad/spywares.
This is because I tried my best in securing my computer settings and not downloading any unknown software onto my computer.
Even with knowledge and precautions, it is not 100% that I will not become infected with a malware that I do not know of.
Therefore, IMO it is a good idea that avast! adds “malware” detection into its engines.
but they still need knowledge about the system. Without that, they will not be able to configure everything correctly and still get infected.If everyone would to be that knowledgeable, then almost no malware would exist on users computer and we would not need any computer technical support.
Arn’t spyware/virus ect programs programed to bypass these settings, in my personal opinon no computer in the world is 100% non infected anless it is not connected to the internet.
–lee
softwareguy
Therefore, IMO it is a good idea that avast! adds "malware" detection into its engines.There are already loads of programs out there that do exactly that. Why clutter up a perfectly good running program with excess baggage?
lee16:
By blocking the possible entry ways for viruses/malwares, you could stop almost all malwares from getting into your system.
bob3160:
The reason why I pointed out “malware” detection in avast! is because I want to keep my computer clean of programs as much as possible.
And by using the existing avast! detection engines, avast! wouldn’t change a lot except the addition of the malware provider which allows the end-user to disable malware detection.
softwareguy
lee16: By blocking the possible entry ways for viruses/malwares, you could stop almost all malwares from getting into your system
Thats my point, i want to try and stop all malware (immposible) so im sure there is some on yours and eddys machine(s) but you just don’t know about it, have you tryed scanning for any to confirm this?.
Another point, these settings/protection where done by you (humans) which means it cannot be perfect, there is always someone smarter then you.
–lee
lee16:
Yes, I have scanned my system and it always came up clean.
After scanning my system, I revert my HDD back using GoBack so I don’t have any extra softwares installed on my system.
Another point, these settings/protection where done by you (humans) which means it cannot be perfect, there is always someone smarter then you.Yes, that's always someone smarter than me, but then those "smarter" people just uses different tricks to trick users to infect their system with malware. I also agree with you that security settings are never perfect, but these settings could save yourself from most cases of malware. For example: 1. Disable JavaScript 2. Disable ActiveX OBJECT 3. Disable Cookies for 3rd party sites. 4. Disable Un-Necessary Services in Windows. 5. Do not open any attachments from [b]ANYONE[/b] unless you know 100% exactly what attachment you are opening. 6. Try to use web-based email rather than a software email client. 7. Install a hardware/software firewall to stealth your computer. 8. Try avoiding downloading free softwares unless you know what they contain and malware free. (Trust is very important.) 9. If possible, do a analysis on what you install on a Virtual Machine or a machine that you no longer use. 10. Install an up-to-update antivirus software on your computer.
These are just examples to stop some malwares from getting into your system. As Eddy mentioned, a lot of these are common-sense and that they could prevent most cases of malware from getting into your computer.
It doesn’t matter how smart programmers write their malware… It’s how you prevent them. For example, there’s no way for a human to execute JavaScript without a capable JavaScript engine. Even if programmers encrypt their JavaScript to stealth their code, it makes no difference because the browser will not execute the code if you disable JavaScript completely.
In some cases, where prevention is not effective, such as Windows vulnerability. You will have to think of workarounds to prevent this problem. Or apply patches from the Microsoft website to keep your system from being exploited.
softwareguy
Are you aware that as of right now, GoBack is one of the programs that has a conflict with SP2?
Softwareguy
I do most of them things and more, i personaly have a clean system, the only people who do infect my system are my mum/sister ect who don’t know what there doing and complan is there are comfiminations poping up.
But just becuase i never directly infected my machine, doesn’t mean it can’t get infected.
–lee