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Downloader--who is to blame?

Discussion in 'Malware and Virus Removal Archive' started by psaulm119, 2006/06/21.

  1. 2006/06/21
    psaulm119 Lifetime Subscription

    psaulm119 Geek Member Thread Starter

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    I just got a downloader called Digg Stream (at least that's what Ewido told me). My page loads and d/l slowed to a crawl, and I installed Ewido and it seems to have improved somewhat. My question--I am running AVG free and Windows Defender on this machine. Which program should be properly blamed and taken into the town square and whipped, for allowing this to happen? Wouldn't downloaders be more properly classified as malware, than a virus per se? In which case, the proper solution would be to replace Windows Defender with Ewido, would it not?
     
    psaulm119,
    #1
  2. 2006/06/21
    TeMerc

    TeMerc Inactive Alumni

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    Wow, what a bummer......:mad:

    I had a very nice, long fairly informative post all cued and ready for posting, spell checked and everything, and the site hiccuped and I lost it all. :eek:

    Long post short:

    Don't blame either of your tools, there are far to many threats for any one single tool to cover, far too many different exploits for one to cover and far too many bad guys creating new infections to stay ahead.

    Add a few protection apps, don't visit any unsavory sites, thing before clicking, better yet, Google before clicking.

    The good guys work almost as hard as the bad guys for far less money and over all the most popular apps you see offered as advise to use are good suggestions.

    Keep any public whipping for the rare occasion the bad guys get caught.
     
    TeMerc,
    #2


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  4. 2006/06/21
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    No, you should run both. Windows Defender gives real time protection against spyware/malware whereas Ewido primarily affords protection against trojans
    Unwanted and uninvited downloaders are trojans; there are, of course, totally legitimate downloaders wich you, as the user, invite to function on your computer.

    Neither protects against viruses - that is the function of antivirus software - AVG in your case.

    You might also like to read this ....

    Keep your Computer free from Viruses, Trojans, Spyware and other Malware
     
    PeteC,
    #3
  5. 2006/06/21
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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    No security app can be "blamed" for missing a trojan or virus. These apps work by comparing a file against a database of known threats. If the trojan-virus is not in its database then it cannot detect it. New threats arise daily and security apps' developers struggle to keep their databases updated so their apps can download new definitions. It's a never ending game of "cat & mouse ". That is why it's best to use several security apps.
     
    TonyT,
    #4
  6. 2006/06/21
    psaulm119 Lifetime Subscription

    psaulm119 Geek Member Thread Starter

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    Thanks for all who posted. I googled digstream and found out that it is supposed to be named from the DIsney Group, part of an ESPN games package (which was on my computer). It is supposed to monitor updates.

    At any rate, later on McAfee found a file called omfg (!) in a Sun/Java folder on the computer, also labelling it a trojan. I eventually decided (after deleting that, and finding little if any improvement in the incredibly slow d/l speed--I clocked in at about 20 kbs, on a Verizon 768 kbps line) to just reinstall Windows, so I'll be working on that for a while now. It took a few hours just to get past the intro segments of Trend Micro's House Call online virus scan (which I was particularly attracted to b/c it works with Firefox), so I just gave up and dedided to reinstall.

    OK OK you guys have talked me into holstering my gun against AVG and Windows Defender. For all I know the detections could have been false positives. And deleting them sure didn't solve my computer's problems.

    Pete, thanks for the page. I'll keep it handy.
     
    psaulm119,
    #5

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