Windows 10 and Bitdefender 2016 issue

[DGM]

AVG Free plus Malware-Bytes Anti Malware seem to be behaving pretty decently.

As this thread is about BitDefender and win10, and because I'm bored again, Ill install that and have a looksie.

I don't run Malware-Bytes because most of the thing it picks up I don't really mind. I don't care if Amazon recommends due to recent searches nor do I care if NetFlix does this, I consider it a feature.

For me, most of what is flagged as "malware" makes my life easier.

 

[Trebuchet]

I don't run Malware-Bytes because most of the thing it picks up I don't really mind. I don't care if Amazon recommends due to recent searches nor do I care if NetFlix does this, I consider it a feature.

For me, most of what is flagged as "malware" makes my life easier.

You can't turn that kind of stuff off?

 

[DGM]

You can't turn that kind of stuff off?

I'm not sure I want to. I've discovered some cool movies and "stuff" I found useful. YouTube also tracks use and I see lots of videos I wouldn't have seen otherwise. Like I said, sometimes whats seen as malware is really a useful feature.

 

[ComfySlippers]

I'm not sure I want to. I've discovered some cool movies and "stuff" I found useful. YouTube also tracks use and I see lots of videos I wouldn't have seen otherwise. Like I said, sometimes whats seen as malware is really a useful feature.

Assuming a person actually knows what all the stuff is that's OK. However a lot of naughties live there that your AV wont find, and they don't tend to be called things like 'NastyHijacker". Because I'm a clever sod I usually do that stuff manually.

The YouTube thing sounds decidedly dodgy because YouTube does that by itself anyway. Come to think of it so does the Amazon thing. I wonder if you're talking about the same thing here. Naughties can have misleading names such as "YouTube" or "Amazon". That is one of their naughty qualities.

 

[DGM]

Assuming a person actually knows what all the stuff is that's OK. However a lot of naughties live there that your AV wont find, and they don't tend to be called things like 'NastyHijacker". Because I'm a clever sod I usually do that stuff manually.

The YouTube thing sounds decidedly dodgy because YouTube does that by itself anyway. Come to think of it so does the Amazon thing. I wonder if you're talking about the same thing here. Naughties can have misleading names such as "YouTube" or "Amazon". That is one of their naughty qualities.

I consider them not naughty if I see no ill effects. My bank puts a "malware" on my PC every time I log on(shows up in every scan). If I log on with a different machine, I need to go through more security.

Hell, this site does it, it allows me to not have to keep login in (actually It's likely Google doing it, but, who cares).

 

[ComfySlippers]

I consider them not naughty if I see no ill effects. My bank puts a "malware" on my PC every time I log on(shows up in every scan). If I log on with a different machine, I need to go through more security.

Hell, this site does it, it allows me to not have to keep login in (actually It's likely Google doing it, but, who cares).

You're talking about Cookies. Not the same thing.

 

[DGM]

You're talking about Cookies. Not the same thing.

I know but, they are often flagged as malware.

I think the false positive on malware is way more than what constitutes real threats.

 

[TragicMonkey]

However a lot of naughties live there that your AV wont find, and they don't tend to be called things like 'NastyHijacker".

Heh. When I was in tech school my class did an experiment to see how many people would blindly run an obvious malicious program. Something like 85% of the recipients of a file actually named "virus.exe" or "run_this.virus" and similar ran it when received via an email telling them it was to "fix their computer". The other 15% weren't all canny either--half of them just didn't check their email in like three weeks.

As for the Bitdefender thing, I got tired of not using my sweet new computer so I tried a couple more times to get it working, then gave up and reactivated Windows Defender. I asked the Bitdefender people for a refund on the grounds I was never able to install and use their product and that my support ticket hadn't gotten a response in a week.

 

[Darat]

I had a similar problem with BD 2015 - I had to manually uninstall it and download the installation package and install it from that. It then took about 3 restarts of Windows 10 to complete upgrading itself.

 

[ComfySlippers]

I installed, (small executable- downloads all from server), and am running, BitDefender.
However it's the Free 2014 edition.
No problems, including server, so I'm suspecting its the paid-for 2016 version that is misbehaving.

It's not for me though. It doesn't pass the Jauntiness-Test™.
Not sure what to fiddle with next now.....

 

[elbe]

I know but, they are often flagged as malware.

I think the false positive on malware is way more than what constitutes real threats.

I'm not sure it's always malware, a lot of malware scanners started including adware too so anything that tracks users get included. It's not always malicious and some people may find it useful (Microsoft seemed to think people might want to be tracked for advertising purposes) but some people want to get rid of them.

 

[elgarak]

I once had Norton (the internet security suite) -- hey, don't blame me, I was young and naive back then. It came as "free trial" on a laptop, and I figured, hey, give a paid-for service a try for once. (There were already warnings against and bad reviews about it, but I haven't found them yet. In my mind, the name 'Norton' still had a high-quality ring to it.)

This thing would notify me quite often with something that read like "YOU ARE BEING ATTACKED RIGHT NOW!!!!!!". In the beginning, I checked up on the supposed actual threats. Invariably, they were harmless, just normal occurrences in networks (a great deal of them were just pings). After a couple of days, I just gave up and turned the notifications off. They were useless by giving so many false positives, very obviously by design to justify the existence of the suite.

Shortly thereafter, the stupid thing prevented me from saving (self-created, macro- and animation-free) PowerPoint presentations as I was just about to present at a conference, which is when I finally got rid of the thing for good.

 

[DuvalHMFIC]

I'll admit that I HAVE done some "naughty stuff" on the web, and I've still always gotten by just fine by using Windows Defender and/or MalwareBytes. I have had to occasionally run something like SuperAntiSpyware (used to use Spybot but it's gone downhill.)

I did get a pesky Google redirect virus like 3 or 4 years ago. THAT was a pain in the butt to get rid of. I want to say Hitman finally got rid of it, but I don't remember for sure.

 

[CelticRose]

Am I wrong in saying most virus infections are self inflicted? Hell, who would target me specifically.

It's possible to get a virus infection by simply visiting a reputable website that happens to be displaying a dodgy ad at that moment; the user doesn't have to do anything: it's an automatic download. Ad servers don't always do a very good job of vetting the ads they run. I've had ads on the BBC News site (I'm in the U.S., so I see ads on some BBC sites) and on our local ABC affiliate try to download nasties to my machine.

Having Flash on ask to activate and enabling tracking protection in Firefox takes care of the worst of those, and Avast gets any that slip through.

 

[elbe]

Keep in mind that it may not be just your safe browsing habits you have to account for but anyone else who uses your computer and, potentially, people you communicate online with regularly. Maybe you have a teenage son who goes to "questionable" websites when the adults aren't looking. Maybe you have an elderly mother who forwards all sort of "cute" or "funny" things to you. Being safe online by yourself isn't usually that hard but it's when you start having to account for other people that things may get more complicated.

 

[JJM 777]

So, anybody encounter this and know the solution?

Encountered? No.

Solution: Restore the system to a date before you installed Bitdefender. That will return life back to as if you had never installed it.

But NOTE: Windows 10 has also a new tool called "system reset", which looks a bit similar to system restore, but which resets the computer to factory defaults, rather than going back to a chosen date. Luckily this tool warns you that you will lose all your programs, so you will understand to cancel the tool.