DjLizard

this is a post whore thread

hehe I pissed you off. Sorry. I'm just playin around. "What it doesn't do: Ad-aware can only find spyware identified in its definition file" That's not true I keep hearing that Spy Sweeper is so great, but how come it looks like crap Hmm, I was hoping that PC-Tools had to do with the oldschool awesome DOS PC-Tools, but alas, no. I see why it looks familiar though: it's actually winguides network. They make that funky registry mechanic that frightens me (and was rebranded as PC Tools Registry Mechanic). So yeah, now we're doomed with having to use 1,024 different spyware removal tools in order to do our jobs (as techs) or for end-users to clean their machines. I saw this crap happening in 1995, but I was only 15, and powerless to stop it. My friend got an eerie eyeball icon [with a link to a sex site] popping up on his desktop and in his start menu every bootup, and nothing/nobody had ever heard of it, so I removed it manually. It was a PITA.

propaganda

Hmm. I see... Didn't think of it this way, but I'm using Firefox preloader, which keeps it loaded even when it's not open.. so that explains a lot.

Then there remains a bug in CCleaner if it takes two cleans

We're able to actually cause the problem using CCleaner. Right now, on this computer (at my workplace) I can cause CCleaner's own forums to appear screwed up (if I allow CCleaner to clean Firefox's cache). Same thing for me at home, and several of my customer machines.

I do it the old fashioned way in Windows 9x. : smartdrvscandiskregedit /e reg.txtregedit /c reg.txtsmartdrv /x

The registry "fragmentation" that most people talk about is one of two things: 1) The hive files themselves which can become fragmented on the disk (use Raxco Perfectdisk or Pagedefrag above or something) 2) The hive files contain keys that were deleted but have not been purged yet (just like Win9x -- use NTREGOPT for this)

Yep, NTREGOPT is the same exact registry tweak, but for NT systems.

UPX is harmless. It just so happens that it is free, and convenient for malware coders. Using UPX, I compressed CCleaner.exe from: 438272 bytes to 135168 bytes (428 KB to 132 KB) Here is a list of the other compressable files: -------------------- ------ ----------- ----------- 49152 -> 18944 38.54% win32/pe CCHelper.ocx180224 -> 76800 42.61% win32/pe CCListView.ocx 40960 -> 15360 37.50% win32/pe CCSubTimer.dll 61440 -> 27136 44.17% win32/pe CCTab.ocx151552 -> 58368 38.51% win32/pe CCTreeView.ocx 17408 -> 7168 41.18% win32/pe lang-1031.dll 17920 -> 7168 40.00% win32/pe lang-1033.dll 18944 -> 7168 37.84% win32/pe lang-1034.dll 18944 -> 7680 40.54% win32/pe lang-1036.dll 17920 -> 7168 40.00% win32/pe lang-1040.dll 11776 -> 6656 56.52% win32/pe lang-1041.dll 10752 -> 6656 61.90% win32/pe lang-1042.dll 18944 -> 7168 37.84% win32/pe lang-1043.dll 16896 -> 7168 42.42% win32/pe lang-1044.dll 17920 -> 7168 40.00% win32/pe lang-1045.dll 16384 -> 7168 43.75% win32/pe lang-1049.dll 16896 -> 7168 42.42% win32/pe lang-1053.dll 19456 -> 7680 39.47% win32/pe lang-2070.dll 71131 -> 54747 76.97% win32/pe uninst.exe-------------------- ------ ----------- -----------774619 -> 344539 44.48% [ 19 files ] That's awesome, no? The directory took up 1,295,839 bytes before Now it takes up 562,655 bytes, and the program still works fine (that is the point of UPX ) psst, MrG

It's just propaganda. People have been saying that crap for years. No antivirus company that wants to stay in business has ever created a virus. There are plenty of people in the company who would know/find out about it, and there are plenty of people who would love to ride the coattails of breaking news about that sort of revelation. They would rat out their corporation in an instant, for financial or political gain. Antivirus companies spend too much time in the lab analyzing the viruses that are already out there to even need to consider making their own. It is fear, uncertainty, and doubt on the part of those who do not understand. These allegations usually come from the same people who claim that Microsoft puts backdoors in their products, or any number of other nonsensical Microsoft claims.

No they don't.

Death to Tarun.

This entire thread is spam.

Norton products are awful. They won't integrate with other Norton products without blowing up... they won't upgrade to newer Norton product versions without blowing up... every Symantec knowledgebase article invariably leads to 'uninstall/reinstall', which is usually the reason you are there (because an uninstall failed, or the initial install failed)... and as previously mentioned, the removal tools don't remove everything (I'm not too far away from making my own, argh) and leave you unable to reinstall... it's pathetic. Then there's liveupdate which makes you update 30 times in a row, rebooting each iteration. Why can't there be a rollup? Why can't the 200x version be up to date for once? Right when NAV 2005 came out, there's 963,440,721 MB of updates for it. What gives? Norton Corporate is OK though; it doesn't have *as many* problems. On the other hand, McAfee Antivirus/Security Center crashes a lot and is very obtrusive (popup windows more obtrusive than XP notify balloons, asking you if you want to continue what you were doing or be annoyed some more - both answers lead to annoyed some more) So that's the main two.. then there's all these runner ups, half of which nobody's heard of, or they are brand new to the scene.. claiming to get all viruses. Well, they all suck. I have Norton Corporate Edition (which is half decent), and I only use it because other users are on my machine that make starfish mistakes. I personally never get infected with viruses or spyware.