What if virus scan gives the all-clear when I still have doubts?

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A little bit ago, I was on AW and all of a sudden, a window pops up telling me about a way to enhance my online privacy or somesuch.

Crap.

So I shut down my browser and ran a full scan with Windows Defender, all nice and up-to-date. It doesn't detect any problem. Does that mean all's well?
 

stephenf

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Hi
Windows Defender is free , but not very good. To be fair no security software is a 100% watertight but windows defender is poor . I would run a scan provided by Malwarebytes and then install better security. It worth looking at some up to date revues . The better ones bring out improved versions all the time to try be the number one . I'm using bit defender at the moment , it is one of the lest intrusive and so far , seems to be ok . But I sure one day it will let something in.
 

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Did you also flush your browser history? All of it, please. Things like that can hang around for awhile before the pop up finally triggers.

Malwarebytes (anti-malware) and AVG free (anti-virus).
 

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Did you also flush your browser history? All of it, please. Things like that can hang around for awhile before the pop up finally triggers.

Malwarebytes (anti-malware) and AVG free (anti-virus).

Yeah, I did that.

The last time I had all those anti-virus things on the machine at once, they started fighting each other and bogging down. Is that a concern anymore?
 

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Yeah, I did that.

The last time I had all those anti-virus things on the machine at once, they started fighting each other and bogging down. Is that a concern anymore?

Don't put them on your computer; put them on a USB stick. Use one at a time to scan.

Also:

Clear your Web history and cache, close all windows and completely Quit your browser.

I don't think there is a "Best"—keep ONE antimalware app installed, one that runs automatically and checks all the time on your local drive; let it run in the background and keep it updated.
 
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Chris P

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I've had Avira for years and am really happy with it. It catches stuff some of the pay programs miss. It updates automatically, but you have to start scans manually. There is a pay version with more features.
 

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So I ran AVG and Malwarebytes, but they came up with nothing and I got punted to another wacky danger page on AW.

I'm clearing everything - again - and rebooting.

Any other ideas?
 

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What's happening isn't a virus. Ad servers occasionally serve up links that are designed to redirect your browser to a given website or to open a new window to their site. The ones hitting AW right now seem to mainly be from brokerltd[dot]com[slash]ads and maha-media[dot]com[slash]ads. It's hard to catch the inital URL because it immediately redirects to a second URL, which in turns redirects to the one that's annoying everyone, but I got both of those this evening.

It's not the ad server doing this; they're being made to look stupd by the people abusing their service. Once the ad company knows they're being used like this, the offending links will be removed from the rotation.

Assuming you have basic protections in place, like no automatic downloads of any kind, and you never, ever click any button on the page, you shouldn't have any problems except the annoyance.

Editing to add: Turning off java script will also stop the problem. At home I usually have it off by default, but I ran into these ads at work today, so I knew about them. I had to wait till I got home where I was able to catch the URLs, and now I have scripts turned off again so I can finally read the forums.
 
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What's happening isn't a virus. Ad servers occasionally serve up links that are designed to redirect your browser to a given website or to open a new window to their site. The ones hitting AW right now seem to mainly be from brokerltd[dot]com[slash]ads and maha-media[dot]com[slash]ads. It's hard to catch the inital URL because it immediately redirects to a second URL, which in turns redirects to the one that's annoying everyone, but I got both of those this evening.

It's not the ad server doing this; they're being made to look stupd by the people abusing their service. Once the ad company knows they're being used like this, the offending links will be removed from the rotation.

Assuming you have basic protections in place, like no automatic downloads of any kind, and you never, ever click any button on the page, you shouldn't have any problems except the annoyance.

Editing to add: Turning off java script will also stop the problem. At home I usually have it off by default, but I ran into these ads at work today, so I knew about them. I had to wait till I got home where I was able to catch the URLs, and now I have scripts turned off again so I can finally read the forums.

I was going to say it was an add, not a virus. I get them now and then, especially on AOL. I just click X and move on. I have Norton which comes free with Comcast. I'm pretty happy with it.
 

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Pop-ups may be caused by non-virus malware - that is, ad-serving crud that gets installed without your noticing it and which is NOT recognized by anti-virus software. You need to use another type of scanner. MalwareBytes, SuperAntiSpyware and Spybot are a few of the best. Watch out for MalwareBytes' "try the pro version" when it's first run. Can be annoying when you try to use it the next time :ROFL:

These malware scanners take care of the little things that cause big annoyances. As for antivirus...mostly a placebo, but make sure whatever you have is updated and active.