Sly

Please don't misunderstand me, I do appreciate the time and effort of anyone responding, and I have no doubt that you are all well meaning. I am not trying, nor was I ever trying, to lay the blame on a particular application, company, or program. My concern is the same as it was to begin with, why did it happen and how to prevent it from happening again if there is a way to do so, assuming I can determine the reason why it happened. Most of the answers I get here keep saying it has to be a problem with the anti virus program being weak, inadequate, or not very good in some form or another. Radialpoint, which is what Verizon uses, is among the best ones out there according to research I did before getting it to begin with. I did allow them to use a remote connection to inspect my computer after this occurred, and they could find nothing to determine a reason. I only came here thinking perhaps there is a precedent for it known here. I didn't come to argue, disagree with anyone, or try to blame Piriform, CCleaner, or filehippo. That said, SOMETHING caused a problem! I still think the Captain Kirk comment might be correct. I do keep getting responses saying that my AV support is poor, or the AV program isn't a good one. All I can answer to that is the following... Here is a snippet from a press release, dated Dec 11, 2008, which makes it very current, from Radialpoint. The link to the entire page is under the text. ?Radialpoint Security Suite has once again met ICSA Labs? rigorous testing criteria to earn its Anti-Virus Desktop/Server Detection certification,? said Andrew Hayter, anti-malcode program manager, ICSA Labs. ?This is critical, as our anti-malcode certification program provides businesses and consumers alike with up-to-date and valuable information that can help them select the right anti-virus products and vendors for their specific needs." Added Hayter, ?With this certification, Radialpoint?s Internet Security Suite continues to demonstrate its commitment to delivering a high-quality product to its customers.? To earn the coveted ICSA Labs certification, a product must detect all malware in the test environment without any false positives. ICSA Labs analysts found RPS to meet all criteria and technical requirements for the Anti-Virus Desktop/Server Detection Certification, achieving ICSA Lab?s high standards set for anti-virus protection by detecting and preventing the replication of viruses. http://www.radialpoint.com/en/news-events/pr.php?id=200 Radialpoint is certified to detect all malware without any false positives, yet on this forum I've been told that the anti virus I use isn't very good and that it must have been a false positive. The two statements don't fit together do they? But again, I am not concerned with who is right, or who is "more" correct. I just don't want a recurrence of the whole thing! I am not trying to be argumentative. Posting here was an attempt to get information that would possibly help me understand why a simple download, for a program I have used for just about as long as it has been out, from a source that was never before a problem of any kind, would create a locked up computer and cause another program, an anti virus program, to malfunction. Add in the trojan that was found after the fact, in spite of a virus scan done a few hours earlier that showed a clean machine, and it all adds up to something bizarre took place that no explanation seems to available for. My computer is clean today, systems all running normally, nothing new and sinister in the processes or running programs, all of which I monitor daily. Memory usage and power usage are still within the area they have been for months. One incident, unexplained, which I don't think anyone really can explain because there isn't any way to actually track any one particular program or place to lay the blame on. It certainly wouldn't be the first time a program went haywire for reasons nobody can explain. I did unplug the connection, and shut down the computer by hitting the switch, either of which could have been a factor as well. I simply don't know, and neither does anyone else. I'll stick with my current Security Suite setup, which has functioned splendidly for more than a year without any problem of any kind and has good reviews from independent sources. I'll continue to use CCleaner, which I have used for several years and have used on 11 different computers now, and is also on every computer I own even if I don't use that computer personally. I'll continue to download from filehippo, which I use for other programs too. If it all happens again, I'll have to stop using all three to be sure I knock out the one causing the problem. I'd hate to have to do that. Let's all keep our fingers crossed... Thanks for trying to help, and if I offended anyone, sorry about that. I wasn't trying to do that.

Wow, looks like I got a couple of the heavy hitters involved. Sorry guys, but it looks like both of your responses are both blaming Verizon for being the issue and defending CCleaner. That's okay, I expect that response when there is no real answer to be determined. Something happened, none of us will ever know what exactly or how it happened. None of us want to think that it is our product's fault that someone had a problem, that's human nature. I got the same type of response from Verizon. If either Verizon, or anyone here, had an answer other than, "it must be the other guy's fault", I'd be happy to discuss that. Niether you, or Verizon, can really answer what happened or why. This doesn't really surprise me even if I had hoped for a definitive answer that I could use to prevent a recurrence of the problem. Verizon has detected and blocked several bugs before this incident. I have never had a virus found in this computer UNTIL that filehippo download. I suppose it is possible that Starfleet Command chose that moment to beam a tiny Captain Kirk into my computer with a tiny phaser that he used to zap the anti virus and then had Scotty beam him back up before I could catch him. That may be closer to the truth than anything else I have gotten so far. I'm not going to stop using CCleaner, I like the product a lot and run it daily. I reccomend it to all my friends too, and will continue to do so. I'm not trying to blame Piriform, Filehippo, or Verizon just to have someone to blame. I just wanted to know what happened, why it happened, and perhaps how to prevent it from occuring again. Obviously I am not going to get that puzzle answered by anyone, either here or at Verizon.

Yes, I did consider that. Talking to Verizon about it got me the same answer that I have gotten on this forum from the moderator. That answer is "it can't be our fault" from both of the support teams! LOL, something happened, what I will never know, nor will I know why it happened. I haven't ever had any problem with Verizon's Security Suite since I installed it a year ago, and it is very effective in all it does. However, I still use CCleaner and Superantispyware as well because no one program can do it all completely these days. It is possible that Verizon's anti virus had an issue with the filehippo DL codes, I do realize that. I wouldn't have been too concerned about that either if the anti virus program hadn't gone haywire right after the warning about the filehippo DL. Both of them together is a concern still. But, to update now I can save the file, scan it before running it, and then if another virus warning happens again I will have more to work with on "what is causing this". So far there has been no repeat of the virus warning. I hope that continues!

I am not you and I am more concerned with why a false positive from filehippo as you claim it was would corrupt an anti virus program. Looks like the anti virus program did work, detecting and whacking something, but got taken down while doing it's job. I do hope you are aware that some bugs are designed to kill virus scanning programs. McAfee is particularly vulnerable to them if the virus gets into your system. Another scan done as soon as I installed Verizon again showed a trojan in my temp files. The only place a trojan could have come from IS filehippo since I hadn't opened anything else, been to any webpages other than my homepage when opening IE and a page to download the anti virus program again. I do virus scans nightly and there was nothing there when I opened the computer. I attempted the download from filehippo about an hour after that, without ever having been online to that point. The first thing I did after opening IE was check for updates for CC. So, while you think you are clean on filehippo, I'm not so sure yet. Starting the download and getting the warning message were at just about the same moment. Something was there, obviously. Something knocked out the virus scan at the same time and the computer locked up completely. From now on I will put the upgrade download in a file or onto a CD and scan it before opening it to run and install it. I love CCleaner, but am now uncertain about filehippo and downloads from there.

I have the Verizon Security Suite. I did get an option to clean the virus, but when I clicked on that, it locked up the computer completely and nothing would make it work until I turned it off and back on. When it booted up again, I had NO virus protection, it was no longer even showing in my security services. When I clicked on restarting it, I got a message that the virus scan software had been corrupted and needed to be reinstalled. That has never occured before, which is why I am concerned about Filehippo and the CC downloads.

A few days ago I tried to update CCleaner, something I usually do at least a few times a week. This time I got a virus warning as the download progressed from filehippo. I instantly broke the connection by unplugging the cable from the computer. When I checked it out, my virus scan software was no longer functioning or showed up on my list of programs for my security suite software. I had to download it again and reinstall it before it would function. I have not updated CCleaner since that morning. Was this a one time problem with the code in the download or is there a serious problem with the download provider?