firefox or MSAS beta 1?

[Guest]

should i install firefox or Microsoft Antispyware beta 1
having hard time choosing. I'm going towards MSAS

 

[JOE Z.]

Careful:

I have just come off a 10 ten day sprint trying to
untangle MSAS/Norton from one of the spyware MSAS found
named "ISEARCH". This spyware may not be easily removed,
and I noticed that this spyware was in the same folder as
Firefox software modules. In fact, AVG and Norton could
not remove the "ff???.dll" module in Windows\SYSTEM32
\issrv (as I recall). Because it was buried in the system
area, no antivirus program could remove it, even if it
identified it, unless the AV program ran in SAFE mode.

So, I would be cautious about FIREFOX offerings,
because they may be partnered with the company that
provides them with their spyware utility to download to
your PC. Perhaps, my discovery may be a coincidental co-
habitation of Firefox and ISEARCH spyware, but maybe not.

Can anyone else speak to this observation?

Joe

 

[Bill Sanderson]

That is an interesting observation, and may point to the issue behind the
occasional irate message here which states that Microsoft Antispyware has
fingered Firefox as spyware.

I don't believe your posited explanation, just as I don't believe the folks
who feel that Microsoft is targeting Firefox. I'm not sure why the ISearch
files are in that location, but suspect accident, rather than design--or if
design, simply attempting to hide well, rather than collusion.

It is also quite possible that this is a false positive--I haven't been able
to get to the bottom of any of the "firefox is fingered as spyware" threads
yet.

I do have a number of machines with Firefox installed, and no alarms from
Microsoft Antispyware.

 

[Andre Da Costa]

I would recommend installing Microsoft AntiSpyware for extra security, since
all web browsers are still vulnerable to attack. Just the other day Mozilla
foundation offered a security update for FireFox, only proves, you still
need to have solutions specifically targetted to problem. FireFox is
targetted towards web browsing, with some bit of security, but its also
targetted by writers of malicious code.

So, install MSAS as additional security.
Download link here:
http://download.microsoft.com/downl...-fca2f2c6f0cc/MicrosoftAntiSpywareInstall.exe

 

[JOE]

I don't know if, in my case, ISTART is "malicious".
They claim that they distibute their (harmless) "Desktop
Search" module to freeware providers of browsers to help
them in their business. In return, ISTART "helps" the
browser, by recording your keystrokes, keeping logs of
these, and making copies at their own company website, as
well as the provider's. I guess it's only malicious,if
they use the gathered information in an illegal manner,
rather than for business market research, or make your PC
slow down,perhaps fail. But how would you know? Besides,
ISTART is very difficult to remove, they say, unless you
visit their site, and let THEM remove it for you. It's
all a matter of trust, I guess.

 

[JOE]

I don't know if, in my case, ISTART is "malicious".
They claim that they distibute their (harmless) "Desktop
Search" module to freeware providers of browsers to help
them in their business. In return, ISTART "helps" the
browser, by recording your keystrokes, keeping logs of
these, and making copies at their own company website, as
well as the provider's. I guess it's only malicious,if
they use the gathered information in an illegal manner,
rather than for business market research, or make your PC
slow down,perhaps fail. But how would you know? Besides,
ISTART is very difficult to remove, they say, unless you
visit their site, and let THEM remove it for you. It's
all a matter of trust, I guess.

 

[Andre Da Costa]

Its all matter of ensuring that you have right protection in place to
prevent such problems from getting on your PC in the first place.
AntiSpyware, whether Microsoft or Third Party is a start.

 

[Bill Sanderson]

No--about every sentence in that description smells like spyware to me. I
think it is pretty unlikely Firefox has that built-in, and I haven't seen
the detection on the machines I have running Firefox. What do they call
their add in pieces? Could this be something that gets hauled in along with
some really valuable "free" add-on?

 

[Bill Sanderson]

I agree that what you found looks bad--but I'd like to know more about how
it got there. Before accusing Firefox, I'd go out there and do a clean
install of Firefox from their site and test. I do wonder about the add-in
issue--are you familiar with MessengerPlus? This is a freeware add-on (for
MSN Messenger) which is extremely popular, and which bundles ad-ware,
currently very openly, but this wasn't always the case in the past.

 

[Nancy Ward]

I've had no fingers pointing to Firefox. I use Spybot, AdAware and MSAS.
None of them have pointed to Firefox.