LordOfLA and Johnny.... so far as AVG, ESET or Avast, I didn't want to go into too much detail when I started this thread, but I had bought Avira Antispyware Premium version and installed it the first week of this month. So I do have what seems (so far) to be a user friendly security program. Well, that's part of the rest of the story...
Although I had the Avira app I had lowered Avira's defenses because I had been having troubles accessing and downloading from reputable sites like Sun Java, Adobe and even Microsoft updates. I got irritated with Avira's stubborn attitude (yes, I feel now that security apps can have attitudes) and lowered the security level low enough that my laptop got a virus. This virus was a redirecting trojan (as I later learned) and it was able to redirect my internet movements away from my intended destinations and to vendors websites.
I had installed Avira for the purpose of allowing it to do discover and do battle with whatever bug was doing the redirecting. Avira couldn't recognize anything lurking anywhere. That's when I turned to the Microsoft people for assistance. I got a live chat MS geek to try to help and he ended up giving me MS Security Programs phone number. When I tried to ring them up I got a recording that told me if I hadn't tried OneCare I couldn't speak to a tech until I had installed and tried it.
I downloaded OneCare and during the installation it told me to uninstall any other antispywares I had on my machine. I thought that uninstalling the Avira program I had just paid $30 for must have been a typo so I just disabled it and took it out of my startup process. Nope, OneCare is a jealous employee and told me it still detected it and wanted it removed. (that's when I first suspected she had an attitude.. oh wow.... now I admitted I have given her a gender... maybe I'm a bit rattled)
I did an uninstall and then had to go back with my super uninstaller program YourUninstaller, and do a clean sweep of the crumbs. Finally I had OneCare. But Onecare didn't detect anything and kept giving my machine's status as excellent or some such BS. All the while that bug had me by the short-hairs redirecting like mad. I searched relentlessly until I found a mom-and-pop geek website that discribed the culprit and the only way he knew to kill it. The fix was a few obscure programs that were GNU open source freebies. GMER was one, Autoruns, and HijackThis to take a look. I also ended up doing a command SFC SCANNOW to repair the furniture after the battle was finished.
I'm sorry, this is way too long to keep your interest so.... after the trojan problem was gone Onecare caused me other problems that only went away when I uninstalled WOC; not being able to start my machine in a normal manner (it defaulted to Windows Boot Manager); asking me permission and then ignoring my decisions; insisting that reputable websites didn't have proper cerificates; not letting Java Script run and other annoyances. That's why I titled this thread "OneCare Owned my Machine"
This is the latest and then I'll let it die: After I did finally find a way to uninstall OneCare (she left kicking and screaming after a MS tech told me how to uninstall her with an .exe he snuck to me) and things were seemingly ok, I had to do a system restore which was apparently an invitation for her to move back into my machine and take over again. She apparently doesn't mind me having a few words with you boys (I think she likes Carpo), but if she figures out what we're talking about she'll come down on me again......
It's like I said after my second divorce years ago "Next time instead of getting married again I'm just gonna find an ugly woman I hate and buy her a house".
