avira antivirus tab opens when I do anything!!!

ankles

Not sure this will even post, but randomly when I try and do anything, such as work a document in MS Office, or use Google Chrome, or look at Task Manager, up pops my default browser (I've uninstalled and change default browsers and it still happens) and a new tab offering me the chance to upgrade Avira Antivrus pops up. I'm doing a virus scan now, but as Avira is my actual antivirus I'm wondering if its the issue. THe tab that pops up is the official Avira page , https etc. Anyone else have this problem or anything similar?

Alcoheda

Check your browser extensions, I'll bet there's a sneaky extension in there from Avira.
Also, I'd say that antivirus has made your machine less secure.
You'd be better off just sticking with the microsoft one that comes with windows.

ankles

So now on my phone as I can't click click on the boards tab on the laptop. Running Acura scan which will take hours. Maybe uninstall?

Alcoheda

You can force it to close if you find the process name in Task manager.
Right click and kill it.

ankles

Alcoheda wrote: »

Check your browser extensions, I'll bet there's a sneaky extension in there from Avira.
Also, I'd say that antivirus has made your machine less secure.
You'd be better off just sticking with the microsoft one that comes with windows.

Nothing in extensions but I think I'll uninstall. When I uninstalled chrome it just switched to opening tabs in Edge.

DopeTech

ankles wrote: »

So now on my phone as I can't click click on the boards tab on the laptop. Running Acura scan which will take hours. Maybe uninstall?

Easiest thing to do would be uninstall, restart your laptop and reinstall.

If that fails remove it again and either use the built in av or something else like sophos. I've been using it for a while now. Handy as you can have multiple pcs on it and you can monitor them all remotely.

ankles

Alcoheda wrote: »

You can force it to close if you find the process name in Task manager.
Right click and kill it.

It won't let me do that!!! When I try and open processes in task manager it just opens the Avira tab in chrome. Beyond frustrating

ankles

FrostyJim wrote: »

ankles wrote: »

So now on my phone as I can't click click on the boards tab on the laptop. Running Acura scan which will take hours. Maybe uninstall?

Easiest thing to do would be uninstall, restart your laptop and reinstall.

If that fails remove it again and either use the built in av or something else like sophos. I've been using it for a while now. Handy as you can have multiple pcs on it and you can monitor them all remotely.

It won't let me uninstall. It doesn't allow me to right click on avira. Trouble.

ankles

Ok. It let me uninstall eventually. I am rebooting now. Will try avira again then.

Alcoheda

I'm not on a windows machine but i think you should be able to uninstall programs from the control panel.
I think it's under program control IIRC.
This post suggests that there are actually 2 parts to the software so make sure you get them both.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/bgpkiller.html

I do NOT recommend running the software linked to in that post.
I'd try to get rid of it manually as installing more unverified software to kill existing unverified software is not a good strategy.

by the way Free Antivirus == malware.
I doesn't matter who provides it, your privacy is the product.

ankles

OK, back up and running, madness there, it literally would not let ,me right click on any Avira product in Control panel. Eventually it relaxed its grip and I got rid of it. Trying to unstall the AVira software updater now

ankles

ankles wrote: »

OK, back up and running, madness there, it literally would not let ,me right click on any Avira product in Control panel. Eventually it relaxed its grip and I got rid of it. Trying to unstall the AVira software updater now

And done. Wow its scary when your antivirus turns against you. Is Windows Defender sufficient or are there any other freeware versions worth installing?

ItHurtsWhenIP

I have to call you out on these two statements:

Alcoheda wrote: »

...
You'd be better off just sticking with the microsoft one that comes with windows.

Windows defender is pretty poor in comparison with other AV products.

Alcoheda wrote: »

by the way Free Antivirus == malware.

Ahhh ... no it's not. Malware is malicious software. Free antivirus protects you from Malware (most of the time - nothing is guaranteed 100% :rolleyes:).

What Free really means is that "you", the installer of the antivirus, is the product. So it might report back statistics on your usage of the internet, applications in use, general meta data. You give away more information than this with your supermarket loyalty cards.

If the more well known products were to start "stealing" your information (files, e-mails, etc.) they would be called out by their competitors VERY quickly and their reputation would end up in the toilet and they would be out of business pretty fast. So it is not in their interest to do so.

Alcoheda

Windows defender is certainly a lot better than random shyte off the internet, I wouldn't run antivirus myself as I keep my system and software up to date and I have developed a healthy paranoia with regards to what software I allow to run.

You need to ask yourself how that crap ended up on your hard drive in the first place, Most viruses are like vampires in that they need you to let them in willingly.

ItHurtsWhenIP

ankles wrote: »

And done. Wow its scary when your antivirus turns against you. Is Windows Defender sufficient or are there any other freeware versions worth installing?

Windows defender is a poor product.

I use the free version of Avast, and it works fine for me. I just have the minimal installation, as there are a lot of "add-ons" to it, which I don't want. Chose custom installation and see what is available. Tick the first two though as a minimum (I can't remember what they're called).

You just have to put up with nags every now and again to upgrade to the paid version.

ItHurtsWhenIP

Alcoheda wrote: »

Windows defender is certainly a lot better than random shyte off the internet, I wouldn't run antivirus myself as I keep my system and software up to date and I have developed a healthy paranoia with regards to what software I allow to run.

You need to ask yourself how that crap ended up on your hard drive in the first place, Most viruses are like vampires in that they need you to let them in willingly.

Anti-virus on it's own is not good enough.

Updating software on it's own is not good enough.

Being paranoid is not good enough.

You need to treat computer security with a defence in depth approach and have multiple layers - as in the examples in the link.

With your apparent attitude, you are susceptible to a zero day malvertising attack. I hope you have backups! :rolleyes:

Alcoheda

I take your point, however nobody can deny that in this case ankles has actually become a victim of the antivirus industry.
The whole message of "dowload this free third party tool" to "make your computer more secure" is ludicrous.

On top of that, even the big players in antivirus are prone to introducing vulnerabilities where there had been none.

http://fortune.com/2016/07/05/homeland-security-warns-of-a-bug-in-symantecs-anti-virus/
https://bgr.com/2016/05/17/norton-antivirus-hacked-bug-symantec-flaw/

what makes this particular flaw dangerous isn’t the bug itself, it’s where in the system the code is unpacked. On Windows machines, Symantec is unpacking potential malware directly into the kernel

I think if virus protection needs to be done on windows, it should be handled by microsoft. It's their OS, they're charging for it, let them fix it.

ps. I realize that this is a slightly idealistic view.

Alcoheda

ItHurtsWhenIP wrote: »

With your apparent attitude, you are susceptible to a zero day malvertising attack. I hope you have backups! :rolleyes:

This is somewhat mitigated by my value as a target, I don't think someone is going to waste their zero day on an end user like me, or ankles for that matter.

tricky D

@Alcoheda You are being complacent if you think you are not a target for zero days and complacency is an enemy of security. Such exploits are rarely finely targeted or assessed for value but more used in a scatter gun way meaning every or any body is a potential target.

As for not using AV and relying on updates that is plain reckless and irresponsible.

OP this link is worth trying http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/bgpkiller.html MajorGeeks is reputable. Or if you want to remove try using RevoUninstaller which is good at removing program stuff deeply embedded in your system, which AV is.

Alcoheda

tricky D wrote: »

@Alcoheda You are being complacent if you think you are not a target for zero days and complacency is an enemy of security. Such exploits are rarely finely targeted or assessed for value but more used in a scatter gun way meaning every or any body is a potential target.

As for not using AV and relying on updates that is plain reckless and irresponsible.

OP this link is worth trying http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/bgpkiller.html MajorGeeks is reputable. Or if you want to remove try using RevoUninstaller which is good at removing program stuff deeply embedded in your system, which AV is.

I disagree with that assessment, I interact with the internet in a limited number of ways. Mainly I user my google chrome browser to surf the web. I also use UBlock origin to block unwanted connections automatically (allowing me to be selective about which ads I run), adblock will provide the same functionality.

Unless they have a zero day with a sandbox escape from the chrome browser, there's very little an attacker can do to gain control of my system.
When was the last time we saw a large amount of users affected by this kind of attack?

I know this isn't bulletproof but when compared to the prospect of installing a hulking great closed source, third party, free (or otherwise) piece of software that hogs resources and monetizes you by nagging you constantly, I think I'll take my chances.

Furthermore, I think recommending that people install fixes they find on the internet, such as the majorgeek tool we both linked are behaving irresponsibly.

The idea that you would give some closed source third party tool full permission to do anything it wants on your machine in order to fix another security issue has a whiff of swallowing the spider to catch the fly.

ankles

Thanks for all the feedback folks. I'm back up and running and have downloaded Total AV, for a change. I appreciate all the issues as regards online safety and security. I, like the vast majority, am willing to sacrifice a measure of anonymity, and also an acceptable (to me) level of threat, to live in the modern world.

ItHurtsWhenIP

ankles wrote: »

Thanks for all the feedback folks. I'm back up and running and have downloaded Total AV, for a change. I appreciate all the issues as regards online safety and security. I, like the vast majority, am willing to sacrifice a measure of anonymity, and also an acceptable (to me) level of threat, to live in the modern world.

As an additional clean-up and second-opinion measure, you could use Malwarebytes. Run the scan and it will clear out any traces of spyware/crapware on your machine. There's a free version and a paid version.

ItHurtsWhenIP

Alcoheda wrote: »

I disagree with that assessment, I interact with the internet in a limited number of ways. Mainly I user my google chrome browser to surf the web. I also use UBlock origin to block unwanted connections automatically (allowing me to be selective about which ads I run), adblock will provide the same functionality.

Unless they have a zero day with a sandbox escape from the chrome browser, there's very little an attacker can do to gain control of my system.
When was the last time we saw a large amount of users affected by this kind of attack?

I know this isn't bulletproof but when compared to the prospect of installing a hulking great closed source, third party, free (or otherwise) piece of software that hogs resources and monetizes you by nagging you constantly, I think I'll take my chances.

Furthermore, I think recommending that people install fixes they find on the internet, such as the majorgeek tool we both linked are behaving irresponsibly.

The idea that you would give some closed source third party tool full permission to do anything it wants on your machine in order to fix another security issue has a whiff of swallowing the spider to catch the fly.

For somebody who has a "thing" about free software, you seem to use a couple yourself.

ublock - free (although open source)
Chrome - closed source, third party, free :rolleyes:

Alcoheda

I should have specified, I'm using chromium which is the open source variant.
Ublock is a necessary evil.