I just starting to have a problem with the above. On my latest scan, it reported a virus. I went to scan details and it would not let me “select” the so called virus. The “virus” (listed as Firefox memory block xxxx and HTML CVR-2004-1050) and strangely it would not even let me pick the down arrow through the results except for one screen, and then I had to pick the slider and and move the screen down myself. I get a lot of thumbs show up as “unable to scan”, but that’s no problem.
I also have Threatfire anti-virus and anti-spywear loaded, but it has never been a problem before.
The “virus” showed up on two scans, and then went away today.
Detections in Memory -
My guess is that you are doing a Custom scan in which you have elected to scan Memory and that all these detections are in memory or are listings of files that can’t be scanned. Since they aren’t physical files they can’t be moved to the chest, deleted, etc. so there is no action that can be taken, hence the Apply button being greyed out. And presumably the dropdown list.
The detections in memory are frequently other security applications loading unencrypted virus signatures into memory (though doesn’t seem to be the case here).The memory scan can have some unexpected or surprising results.
I don’t know why this old Exploit would be thrown up, since that is from 2004 if your system is up to date even if this were a good detection (and I have my suspicions) then you shouldn’t be vulnerable to the exploit.
I don't use threatfire so I don't know how deeply it gets involved, but I don't believe that extends to injection anything into firefox.
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I don't know your reason for choosing a custom scan (if that was what it was) or scanning memory - With a resident on-access antivirus like avast, the need for frequent on-demand scans is much depreciated. For the most part the on-demand scan is going to be scanning files that would be otherwise be dormant or inert. If they were active files then the on-access file system shield would be scanning them before being created, modified, opened or executed.
I have avast set to do a scheduled weekly Quick scan, set at a time and day that I know the computer will be on. If for some reason my system wasn't on, no big deal I will catch up on the next scheduled scan.
Not sure if the thumbs.db file was your problem was it, or is this an aside question ?
This file just retains thumbnail images for your files. If you ever have a folder display the content as thumbnails (Explorer menu, View) then the thumbs.db file is created and will be updated if you add or delete files in that folder/sub-folder.
If you set the folder View to Details (or other non-thumbnail) option the thumbs.db isn’t created, but won’t be deleted if you change back to Details from Thumbnails. You should be able to manually delete the thumbs.db file. However if you continue to use the Thumbnail View option it will be recreated.
Sorry, it was just an aside question. Since I get a whole row of “errors” in my scan logs of these, I thought I could just eliminate them from the scan so I would get the message that Avast couldn’t scan all the files.
Well corrupt files don’t necessarily need to be deleted and may not be corrupt and isn’t in indication they are infected, etc. Which is why I asked for examples, if it is avast reporting they are corrupt, that could simply be because it is unable to unpack the archive.