Unable to Access Avast Sites

General Topics
1

I have a neighbor with dial up access on a PC also running Win XP sp2 IE7. They had AVG 8 which I removed (at their request) after they had contracted a Virus/Trojan/Malware or whatever which placed a large Red and White Notice on their desk top plus removing some tabs in Display. Message was “WARNING! Spyware Detected on Your Computer! Install an antivirus or spyware remover to clean your computer”. I managed to manually get rid of that and get the system back operational. I was still having some operating issues with the PC and was unable to down load the Avast Anti Virus Protection directly from the Website so installed a version I had on a CD (4.8.1201). Attempts to update this from the Avast Website failed. I could not connect to Avast and update the 1201 installation that I installed or directly from the PC IE 7 browser. My attempts were either being “jumped” to the Findstuff.com website, while IE 7 was attempting to load the site or I was getting the message “Internet Explorer cannot display the Webpage”. After about a day of changes, modifications and various attempts and reading volumes, I still cannot gain access to most of the Avast Website, I can get to some of what appears to be newer Avast sites with advertisement but not the Forums or Updates and etc. Oh, I can go to other websites with no problems but one, when I attempt to down load Windows Defender, I also get the “Internet Explorer cannot display the Webpage”, message.

I then attempted to download the “Uninstall Utility” to remove it. No luck, I just kept getting the “IE cannot display the WebPage” message no matter how I attempted to approach it. I attempted to go through Safe Mode with attachments, no luck. Attempted to access the web through Safe Mode With Attachments, no luck.

At this point I downloaded Ver. 4.8.1229 on a CD (with my computer) and installed that over 1201 which it updated. Then when I run that it found six worms, which we took care of. Still at this point we cannot access the Avast Update Access Site nor can I remove the Avast install I currently have on that PC. I even downloaded the Uninstall Utility and attempted to place that on the desk top to use in Safe Mode but that only places a link to the CD and that will not work in Safe Mode so I cannot access the CD or the website to obtain the Utility needed to remove Avast.

So, any suggestion? I sure could use/need a few - I’m to old for this :slight_smile: Thanks!

2

Okay, after working on this again for sometime, I have learned that whatever the problem is I have, it has to do with downloading a program no matter what website I’m at. Having gone to several sites now and having tried to download various programs, I get the same response every time: “Internet Explorer can not display the Webpage” but not until I clk on the download button of the product I’m researching. So apparently I still have some sort virus, adware, spyware or a ghost :o lurking in this PC. I still get jumped, at times, to sights other than the one I’m trying to open also.

I feel there is no doubt this all came from the infection this computer contracted, so if and when I find the answer I will most certainly post it back here so maybe others will not have to deal with this nightmare or at least know what to do about it if they do get it. Later.

3

I suggest:

  1. Disable System Restore and then reenable it again.
  2. Clean your temporary files.
  3. Schedule a boot time scanning with avast with archive scanning turned on. If avast does not detect it, you can try DrWeb CureIT! instead.
  4. Use SUPERantispyware, MBAM or Spyware Terminator to scan for spywares and trojans. If any infection is detected, better and safer is send the file to Quarantine than to simple delete than.
  5. Test your machine with anti-rootkit applications. I suggest avast! antirootkit or Trend Micro RootkitBuster.
  6. Make a HijackThis log to post here or, better, submit the RunScanner log to to on-line analysis.
  7. Immunize your system with SpywareBlaster or Windows Advanced Care.
  8. Check if you have insecure applications with Secunia Software Inspector.
4

It sounds like a hosts file problem. Check the contents of the file at the location for your operating system.

Windows 95 - C:windows
Windows 98 - C:\windows
Windows Me - C:\windows
Windows 2000 - C:windows\system32\drivers\etc
Windows XP - C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc
Windows NT - C:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc
Windows Vista - C:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc

note the file does not have an extention, it’s simply hosts

Remove any reference to avast from the file. The file can be viewed with notepad.

The default file consists of a number of example lines preceded with # The only required line is
127.0.0.1 localhost

You can get a good replacement and more info on what the hosts file does from here

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm