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I use the free avast! and recommend it to all my customers. Yes, we’ll get this out of the way right now… I service PCs on the side. Not a big business but I have a few regulars. A couple of them have upgraded to your purchased version … including my wife.
Now what the problem is… This customer got a message “avast! has found some problems. Do you want us to fix them?” She, of course, because it was avast! -and- I had assured them it was a good program… said yes. It then promptly removed Firefox, Malwarebytes and all of her games!!
Why?? And is this an error -or- has some rogue grabbed your name and is using it blasphemously??? I could find none of the items removed in the Virus Chest.
Thanks,
Chuck
There’s something else going on here that you’re likely not being told. I have never seen Avast remove the programs you listed. I would be willing to bet the computer has something wrong and someone trying to help, tried a couple things they thought would fix the computer and now your friend is missing programs.
Do you have access to the computer? Can you see the programs mentioned are gone, in the add/remove programs and from the start menu? Is the problem that the desktop shortcuts are missing? Desktop shortcuts can easily be recreated. Can you give us more information please.
Thanks,
Laslo
Yes, I have used Avast and supported this forum for well over 10years and have never heard of this supposed action.
Frankly, an anti virus really doesn’t have the ability to remove recognized, certified coded software such as Malwarebytes.
Definitely seems like there’s some information missing/ something’s amiss.
Actually this is completely plausible with the amount of false positives avast has been throwing for the past few weeks. If somebody has heuristics on anything higher than Low it’d probably want to uninstall Windows at this point.
Sorry, but no, just not possible. avast! doesn’t make false positives on digitally signed programs and i know for sure that Mozilla Firefox is digitally signed because i’m using it. avast! also doesn’t even have a feature to delete anything on as large scale that would erase all of the games. Unless the “games” are limited to some sort of browser add-on in which case it might delete them after cleaning browser and in which acase all browser data got wiped out and not the actual browser. Not sure what might have happened with MBAM, but for the other two scenarios i feel there is really something we don’t know yet…
Not sure what might have happened with MBAM, but for the other two scenarios i feel there is really something we don't know yet...
maybe it was only the short cut?........ a diagnostic log from OTL may help!
I’d add MBAM to your comments … like avast, MBAM has a self-protect module which blocks outside attempts to remove it, I don’t know how successfully.
Thanks for all the replies. Was hoping that someone would have heard of a Rogue program masquerading as avast and that caused the problem… but alas nothing.
- No one else accessed her computer but herself and me.
- Yes I have access to the PC. It is here in my shop.
- I too have used avast! faithfully and recommended it to everyone.
- No she did not use Grimefighter.
- Shortcuts were what she had on her desktop to Firefox and her games. The shortcuts are still there but the programs and games are gone. I can not find them. I’m going to try one of those UnEraser programs IF there is one that will work on Win7. Used to use them in the past … the long past. But I think the things are gone and naturally she did not have a backup. That’s the main reason I get calls. Their machine breaks and they want me to save all their data, pictures and emails. Sometimes I can and sometimes I can’t.
Now then, I have covered all of those angles mentioned. Believe me, I don’t come looking for help unless it is absolutely necessary. Had one guy read me the riot act because I charge. Well, most of the people I service can barely turn the computer on. And I go to their place of residence. IF I can fix it there … we do. But IF I can’t … like this one, then I bring them to my shop(home) and do the repairs here. Then I have to return the PC. So please do not be upset that I have asked for your assistance. I thank everyone of you that replied -and- those that only looked. IF, IF I can get any kind of a handle on this I will reply back and let you know.
Once again thanks to you all,
-Chuck
Are the files actually missing or are they hidden ? There are several types of rogue antivirus/adware type programmes that do that
To determine this run Rogue killer and select the shortcuts fix option
[*] Download RogueKiller and save it on your desktop.
NOTE: If using IE8 or better Smartscreen Filter will need to be disabled
[*]Quit all programs
[*] Start RogueKiller.exe.
[*] Wait until Prescan has finished …
[*] Click on Scan
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/73555776/RKScan.GIF
[*]Wait for the end of the scan.
[*] The report has been created on the desktop.
[*] Click on the Delete button.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/73555776/RKDelete.GIF
[*]The report has been created on the desktop.
[*]Next click on the ShortcutsFix
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/73555776/RKFixShortcuts.GIF
[*]The report has been created on the desktop.
Please attach: All RKreport.txt text files located on your desktop.
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No… they were not hidden. Looked all over for them and the progs were gone! Strangely, NOT all their data. So, I was able to make a half arsed recovery… after doing a FULL factory restore. The operations of the 'puter were just not right and I decided a full clean up was necessary.
Thanks to all for your suggestions and I will apply some of them in the future,
-Chuck
P.S.
And I will reinstall avast!
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I am a new user to Avast and switched to it when my other brand subscription expired. I purchased the full deal and was initially happy until the browser cleanup tool kept nagging me to remove plugins from my browser and install the Yahoo or Bing search engines to replace Google. To get it to stop I figured I would let Avast do its thing and I would change it back. Well the result was the deletion of Firefox, Evernote, Quickbooks, Adobe Acrobat, Acronis True Image, AnyDVD, Neat, and Many many other programs. Avast deleted almost my entire Program Files (x86) folder! I was only able to recover after hours of trying where I finally located my Acronis recovery disk where I encountered problems since one of the increments was corrupt but if I did not have the backups I would be dead in the water now. Bottom line, Avast is MALWARE! I am sorry I even tried this sorry excuse for a program.
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Chuck
It might not have been Avast. Malware programs you pick up from the web sometimes are named similarly to real A-Vs.