Auto minimizing like Avast is a Trojan

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Ever played a game and in the middle of battle had the game minimize?

Since the latest iteration of Avast there is this message that blinks up about sending files. That’s all fine and good but along with the message there appears to be someone at Avast who thinks the program should just minimize what we are doing to show us this pop up message that doesn’t even appear long enough to read. Hell I am not even sure it’s logged anywhere. (Something about “sending file…” I think.)

Now some may point me to the Troubleshooting section of the program where you check the “Check for full screen application (e.g. games) before displaying popups” box. Yea I have that box checked and no effect.

It might be good to test the programs before putting them out there. Now I know you’ll say you do test them however apparently then something isn’t right about the testing.

I also believe you don’t believe that free should mean the programming quality and integrity should just be thrown out the window. Thus, please run this program with an old yet somewhat popular game such as Warcraft III. When Avast decides to notify you of this or that with some minimal pop up over the tray icons that disappears in a flash and makes certain to minimize Warcraft III you’ll see why I am uninstalling Avast.

The cost of needless irritation is no less cost that payment from ones pocket.

Maybe I’ll try this again some other time as it’s a quality product in what it does, just whoever is believing we want this type of disruptive interface needs a hole in their head. I mean honestly the whole reason you want a virus program is due to the trouble viruses cause right? And the primary problem a virus causes is interruption, disruption, and a sense of no control over your own computer. Well why the hell would I want Avast to be able to minimize what I, the user of the computer, am doing so it can give me some message that shows for all of the time it takes to blink my eyes, and, every 5 minutes or so? Maybe someone in marketing should be in oversight over the testing and helping those who code the interface get a better idea of how irritation can lead to unemployment.

I hope you fix it soon however until then I’ll be uninstalling,

Good luck

P.S. While making this post Avast did this little interrupt twice. I am sorry but it would seem that making a virus protection program do exactly what a virus would do in the sense of disruption is the fastest way to find the virus protection program unwanted and thus uninstalled. Maybe whoever wrote/tested this part of Avast works for the competition. It’s a shame.

2

I have never seen ANY files getting sent from my system with-out
my permission…Avast does not have permission either. SO, if I were you, I would find out
who the heck is grabbing files from your system.
When was the last time you did a complete system scan/boot scan/root kit scan ?

Maybe your Avast files have been compromised. You might try an uninstall/re-install.

3

If you read my post entirely you’ll find:

“Now some may point me to the Troubleshooting section of the program where you check the “Check for full screen application (e.g. games) before displaying popups” box. Yea I have that box checked and no effect.”

So although I appreciate the suggestion I promise you I checked the box and it’s not helping at all. “A” for effort though.

I am glad to hear someone else isn’t having an issue with it, there may be many and mine might be isolated.

However I must note something. Just now it did one of these updates while I was typing, it intercepted what I was typing and brought up some big window, but it disappeared just as fast because I kept typing not realizing what had happened until it was gone. Can you see this is very irritating since it’s doing it also when I am browsing and, by it intercepting my keystrokes and presenting a screen etc., it is interrupting what I am doing and disrupting my use of the computer in no less way than a virus would. Can you understand why I find this a major problem?

Further the list of thread titles on this page at the time of posting my thread and this reply to your suggestion indicates more than myself having some new issues that appear to have come from the latest patch.

I was hoping for a more thorough and non assumptive review of my original post with a reply more directed to solving my issue, and taking into account what actions I had already taken, than merely recommending what I had already done with a braggertry of “I have plenty of full screen apps open all the time, never had any trouble.”

Hopefully someone with an actual interest in considering what’s wrong versus looking for a quick cursory means to dismiss a problem will review what I have described originally and also here. Maybe, if they happen to be part of the development team or at least know something about Avast’s operations, they can duplicate and determine what is causing this issue. I am sure I am not alone with it though some may not find it as troubling, settling for the fact they know they are virus protected. Though I am glad for that I do not see why this changed with last patch. Avast did not do this previously, I’ve had it installed for about 2 months now with no problems.

Again thanks for the reply but I am noping for something a bit more considerate of what is happening and seeking to assist in determining the cause and someone without the problem and no interest in Avast would likely have little to contribute to a solution, unless of course they can set aside their need to discuss their own conditions as though all computers are identical, and instead focus on what may have changed from the previous version of Avast to the current one to cause mine and many others issues to have occurred.

Cheers

4

For anyone investigating or attempting to duplicate, is it avast! Home 4.8.1229? 98SE, 2000, ME, XP or Vista? Which Firewall?

Warcraft III is a regular if infrequent activity on our XP Pro SP2 PC with avast! 4.8.1201,1227,1229 but so far no complaints of what you describe.
Does this only happen during Warcraft sessions or at other times as well?

5

Vlad I’ll try to describe this the best I can.

Whatever I am doing, whatever application I am running, is minimized or put to background and Avast takes foreground to do whatever it has to do. There is a brief message that pops up over the tray icons, something about “sending” I believe.

With Warcraft III it is always a minimize. With my browser it merely takes the foreground so even while typing, as I described above, Avast takes over. Then if key I am typing happens to correspond to a command Avast brings up some menu and, so far, whatever else I am typing ( as I keep typing not realizing this is happening, I mean, it’s just suddenly doing it with no warning), the next key, seems to not continue to be some input Avast recognizes. So far it’s been browser and Warcraft today that I have been using so those are the only two I can talk about. I haven’t used system in about a week and this wasn’t happening last week. I also had to manually update the program so I am at a loss right now as to what happened but that it’s been since the update, and usually what you changed most recently before something is broken is of primary relationship to the break.

I was going to also give out my system specs however I haven’t updated or changed anything on the system and Avast was working fine these last 2 months so to me this is clearly due to patch as it only started happening after patch. I hope someone else can duplicate it however if not then at least I know it’s something odd to something on my end which is at least a starting point, maybe not a solution or workaround due to many having issue nor likely something that will be fixed but I can do what I can to troubleshoot it.

As an update too I have been making adjustments by disabling modules and such. So far the Web Scanning module I’ve set to partcular files to scan from the web: .exe, .cmd, .zip, and .dll. I am not sure what other extensions to put in there, however I know none of the above should be coming from battle.net except if there is a program update. If you know others I should add to the list let me know. I added battle.net to the exclusion list. Lastly I am not sure about MIME file types to include so any assistance would be appreciated.

Anyway I just made these adjustments so I will be trying it now and hoping I can play Warcraft III without further issue, and who knows, maybe this will limit this from occurring so often at least. I’d like to keep Avast installed. It’s a good program for what it does and I hope they do figure out what is causing this so I can get rid of what is causing the problem if it’s on my end or it’s fixed in next patch if others find it occurring also. I am hoping even if only a few others are having a problem that it’s a simple find and fix.

Thanks again Vlad,

B.

6

Is the message anything like this?

7

Nope it’s a quick mini window and it’s something like “sending files” or “files being submitted…” I have no idea exactly it’s really quick. However maybe some fragment of what read when it shows up you recognize. See it’s appears over the tray and the Avast icon is spinning and it stops.

Also what I tried as far as battle.net being excluded and file type didn’t do anything, even the trouble checkbox doesn’t work. I’ve unchecked and re-checked that numerous times and no effect.

I guess I could try reinstalling. I wish AVG had stayed free it was so hassle free, though I know it’s not as thorough or as fast as Avast. I don’t know maybe I should just pay for a2Squared and let be my online scanner. No solutions and no one else with similar problems, and, no idea where to start looking, just seems like maybe the patch is bad and I should get something else. Then again it’s only been a few hours and maybe no one else has tried to duplicate the error. Warcraft III is 8 years old so who knows that might have something to do with this, though it’s doing it during just browsing so I am at a complete loss, I mean it never did anything like this before.

Come to think of it, the message you posted would seem to be for a download or if your receiving email with some email client. The situation I am having is merely by use of any program online. That’s why I am looking at particular modules, disabling them or adjusting them, hoping that I find the conflict with being “online.”

I appreciate your trying to find some sort of indicator to give you more to go on also. Alas a virtual “needle in the haystack.” :cry:

I’ll keep checking back, I mean, I do want to keep it installed and hope there is a duplication and a workaround figured out if anyone else has the problem or cares to figure it out.

Thanks again Vlad,

B.

8

Can you capture a picture?
Maybe It can show your problem clear?

9

AVG is still free! (But according to reports not hassle-free). Did you move from AVG 7.5 or 8.0?

The message in my post is for an email client sending mail. I thought something on your PC might’ve been sending SMTP messages which avast! was scanning.

Does this post correlate at all to your experience?

10

As far as taking a picture, it’s just too fast.

As far as AVG, I had 7.5 and they were pushing so hard for me to buy the next one, I mean it appeared by how they referred to what I had that they were discontinuing their free product.

Now for the “solution” to my situation or at least so far it seems to be…

Scanned the system with Avast and a2squared, nothing found.

I began wondering if something in the patch changed how Avast relates to firewalls.

Low and behold the problem is that my firewall comodo is triggering avast and Avast is triggering my firewall too.

So, after excluding each program and restarting a few times, making adjustments where I can, I discovered I had to set avast Web Shield to exclude battle.net so it doesn’t trigger comodo and, in comodo, I had to further authorize a component of Avast and Warcraft III to not trigger avast.

Understand that Warcraft had a file that used to trigger Avast, and there was much web controversy over it 8 years ago when Warcraft III came out, the file triggered numerous virus scanners then also. It also did some sort of odd internet access when you launch the program that notified Blizzard it was being run (if you had an internet connection available).

In fact a few weeks ago I believe Avast found one of the Warcraft III install files “sfnt.dll” or something similarly named contained a trojan. This file installed from the original CD and was required for the program to recognize the CD was in the drive. This has since been fixed, yet even a2squared still finds that file infected on a scan. And to confuse things further, Blizzard has since made the file unnecessary (it was part of the requirement you have the original CD in the drive, their copy protection).

In any event, when launching Warcraft III there is the engine and basically a “front” file, one for Reign of Chaos and one for The Frozen Throne. Both call warcraft.exe and comodo requires authorization of all of them. Where it gets weird is if not authorized then this triggers Avast!

However even authorized the minimizing continued until I also excluded battle.net from the Webshield component of Avast. This may be entirely rare however I know Avast gets triggered when a2squared finds something also, and that this phenomenon occurred with AVG as well. Rootkit Revealer also has triggered the same virus scanners when it finds a rootkit issue but the virus scanner didn’t intercept it originally. This is just to explain the tenor of my original post.

Quick review of the last 2 months may also be in order…

I had installed xp sp3 but had to uninstall it since shortly thereafter I kept losing my internet connection, my cable internet connection, and this required a restart to re-establish the connection. Of course rolling back couldn’t be a simple restore to return to sp2…No I had to run all these “cmd” files after I had to re-install the windows setup program, something about registering in the “mmc” I think it’s called. This I discovered when I couldn’t scan, or install downloaded updates from the Microsoft update website by autoupdate.

Okay so then there is Firefox 2.0.0.15 which would distort and break up web pages such as newegg.com, an often frequented computer products site. Of course I downloaded the prior version 2.0.0.14 and re-installed that, and then had to make adjustments to Firefox to not check the update server nor do an automatic update. Long story short it’s an adjustment made using the url entry line of firefox, an internal preferences file it brings up. Changing autoupdates to not update through the menu doesn’t work so every time I ran Firefox I was prompted for the latest and greatest update that doesn’t work as well as it used to.

Okay so then I start my weekly Avast scan and it didn’t work, continually stopping at the same file count and wouldn’t finish. Naturally I downloaded a new copy of Avast and re-installed, and with that came the update and the problems I described earlier began then.

Though I don’t hope it on anyone else I am sure others have had worse situations. My purpose at this point is to thank those who sought to help me out, it’s greatly appreciated, and to set forth why it is so greatly appreciated. These last 2 months have been a sort of hell for me and it seems that coders anymore don’t write with any pride or integrity in their work, they just want their paycheck, to put in enough time coding to get them paid. Many may find that reasonable and maybe it is.

Consider though that only 30 years ago we wrote code for the sake of seeing what we could do, what we could make the processor and computer do, and we often sought to write from scratch in the interest of perfecting our talents.

Today we rely on what we’re told by those who make this compiler or that engine that makes our development of whatever we are writing easier. Of course their bug is our bug and coders seem much too ready to pass along inability to fix the situation due to being reliant on whoever makes whatever “tool” we are using.

It saddens me to see this going on. Microsoft tech support referring to program bugs as “unimplemented features” based on a code where customer service then directs us to an “implementing link” to download a patch. This along with how so many software companies use the intangibility of computer software as an opportunity to diminsh the quality of what is produced, their “accept” license achieves this legal firewall to any sort of genuine quality assurance, I mean compare software to what you expect buying an automobile, kitchen appliances, etc. Computers manage our financial lives, that’s why hackers and such see them as targets, and yet we seem all too willing to accept whatever we’re given.

As an analogy consider if you’d buy an automobile in 1995 and then purchase the same model and make of automobile in 1998 after learning “they fixed 3000+ defects in the previous one” (windows bugs analogy). Each iteration of windows the number of bugs “fixed” is a greater number. What’s worse is that we excuse it away for the most part once we are told how many lines of code are in the program (20 million for XP I believe).

I do not mean to ramble. I do mean to express how much I appreciate that this forum was helpful, that Avast is free, and maybe these developers as well as others developing a product who happen across this post may re-discover the “charm” of computers and their relationship to us, the user: as our tool and not our master.

At this point I want to post this to Comodo as well since they are looking for input as to conflicts.

My apologies for my nostalgia, every industry starts with excitement and invention only to become more routine and less and less reliant on ingenuity, on differences and seeing the “market” as people and not cattle.

Thank you for reading and for all the help I have received, it is most gracious of you,

B.