Hi, folks. I just installed avast!4 Home Edition yesterday after uninstalling AVG Free. Heard really great feedback on your product at Broadband Reports.com and wanted to give it a try. It immediately found a virus (WIN32.CTX) in a really huge (2497024 bytes) Panda Software ActiveScan file and it apparently deleted the suspect file just fine. Memory Scan is showing nothing, so I guess this one wasn’t embedded in the registry or Startup memory. Don’t know how long the virus has been there (assuming this is not a false positive), because I haven’t really experienced any flaky symptoms, other than a slightly slower response in my Yahoo SBC mail function. System has really speeded up today, too.
If the virus has been there any length of time, Computer Associates EZ AV and AVG Free didn’t catch it. Those are the last two successive av’s on this system. So I’m impressed so far with this av product.
Have read all the help topics and the user interface is GREAT. Hopefully I will continue to have no problems with it, but I’m glad to see there is a forum to bounce questions off of. You moderators and experts are greatly appreciated. :-*
Welcome to the Forums. The only thing you apparently did
not do is use our "search" tab ; there are several threads
on the "Win32.ctx" you might want to read !?
Anything found in the Panda files probably isn’t a virus but only the virus signature: a fragment of virus code used by Panda to identify viruses, but in no way an active virus.
Panda does encrypt its virus signatures, which means other AV’s may detect them in this way. If you want to continue using Panda, you’ll have to temporarily disable avast! while doing a scan.
This also applies to Trend Micro Products like Housecall and Sysclean, both of which will be detected by avast! as containing malware, but again contain only unencrypted virus signatures.
Welcome
I’m glad you find avast! useful.
Your avatar however is way to big to comply with Forum policy. Hopefully the following will be to your liking.
Thanks SpiritSong. Have read them now. I was pretty sure this was a false positive, as I had not been experiencing any wierd system behavior that usually goes along with virus infections. Was in “shock mode” and just deleted the file (virus cleaning tool was not offered on results screen) because I could clearly see it was not a system file. Hadn’t really discovered/explored your forum yet.
Thanks FreeWheelingFrank for the clear, concise explanation. I knew many AV’s hit on other virus databases, which is why I felt it was a false positive from the moment avast hit on it. I go out to Panda’s On-line scanner once a month and do a scan, and some files DO reside on my HD. Am going to try to uninstall via add/remove and disable the Panda ActiveX Control.
Thanks Bob. I immediately saw the avatar came in too big (funny it didn’t on another forum this week) and deleted it . How did you size it down? I’ll have to play with it & try again one day when I have more time.
This is not a false positive in my opinion because it is not avast’s fault. It is Panda’s for not encrypting the signature. Because of this avast! finds it as a virus.
Bob has resized it for you in his above post. Just right click the small icon picture, choose “Save as …”, give it a name or use the one supplied, and click OK. Now, you can just uploaded the smaller icon picture the same way you did the first one.
A Google search produces many results for resizing pictures/images. Personally, I have used Mihov’s Image Resizer for several years but there are many more. You should check out several and use the one that seems easiest for you.
Thanks to you all for the prompt and helpful tips. Not a day goes by I don’t learn something about software. Follow 5-6 other forums for self-education. Will check out those SW packages you both mentioned.
edit: Avatar uploaded OK this time. Thanks again to all of you who helped.
By the way, her name’s Button and she’s two years old and 10 lbs of “trouble” and I just love her!
Hello and welcome to the forum buttoni from another Texan on the Gulf Coast. I believe you will find loads of helpful information here. Lots of nice folks here. Have a great day.
Hello Neal63. I lived in Galveston for 20 years and then in Texas City for another 15 before moving here to Temple, just north of Austin. Nice to see there are some fellow Texans on the forum.
