Spyware from ArcSoft. What the hell is ACDaemon.exe and ACService.exe

D

Dennis

Anyone have additional info about a sleezy company called ArcSoft and
two processes they have managed to sneak onto my freshly formatted
system? (ACDaemon.exe and ACService.exe). I am very curious how these
pricks got their spyware crap onto my system, I've never used their
useless products before.

They've obviously stealthed their crap in with a legit package that I
installed. I'd love to know which one so I can boycott them for life.
This computer was formatted two days ago and has only visited
reputable websites. So far I've only installed: Nvidia drivers, AVG
free, Spybot Search and Destroy, PowerISO, Microsoft Office, Adobe
Flash, Creative drivers, FileZilla, 3dMark06, Firefox... Pretty
standard stuff, all well known reputable apps (right?)

I'm pissed off and just wanted to make it public and searchable on
google: Death to ArcSoft.... ARCSOFT = SCUM.... ahh... I feel better
now..... But if anyone knows how they got their garbage spyware onto
my system then info would be appreciated. It's not showing up on
control panel as removable. Bastards.
 
D

Dennis

Anyone have additional info about a sleezy company called ArcSoft and
two processes they have managed to sneak onto my freshly formatted
system? (ACDaemon.exe and ACService.exe). I am very curious how these
pricks got their spyware crap onto my system, I've never used their
useless products before.

They've obviously stealthed their crap in with a legit package that I
installed. I'd love to know which one so I can boycott them for life.
This computer was formatted two days ago and has only visited
reputable websites. So far I've only installed: Nvidia drivers, AVG
free, Spybot Search and Destroy, PowerISO, Microsoft Office,  Adobe
Flash, Creative drivers, FileZilla, 3dMark06, Firefox... Pretty
standard stuff, all well known reputable apps (right?)

I'm pissed off and just wanted to make it public and searchable on
google: Death to ArcSoft.... ARCSOFT = SCUM.... ahh... I feel better
now..... But if anyone knows how they got their garbage spyware onto
my system then info would be appreciated. It's not showing up on
control panel as removable.  Bastards.
Click to expand...

Nevermind I figured it out. It was installed with my TV Tuner Card
(Winfast PVR from Leadtek) when I updated drivers/software. It wasn't
there before, it's is stealthed into this newer version. I'm still
unclear what it's supposed to be doing - my tv tuner obviously doesn't
need it, I've ran it for years without these two suspicious processes.
Bastards.
 
P

Paul

Dennis said:
Nevermind I figured it out. It was installed with my TV Tuner Card
(Winfast PVR from Leadtek) when I updated drivers/software. It wasn't
there before, it's is stealthed into this newer version. I'm still
unclear what it's supposed to be doing - my tv tuner obviously doesn't
need it, I've ran it for years without these two suspicious processes.
Bastards.
Click to expand...

ArcSoft has a forum, and yes, they've heard this complaint before.
But with forums, there is no guarantee any staff are reading complaints
like this. The forum may have been added as a "user-to-user" forum.

http://www.arcsoft.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3886

Judging by the comments in that forum, people are having trouble
getting through to ArcSoft. So if ArcSoft cares about its
reputation, maybe they should brush up on their customer
service policy and procedures (i.e. less web site lameness).
Customers would feel even a bit better if they could - file a
question or complaint, and at least get an "auto-acknowledgment"
rather than complete silence.

You could use a program like Autoruns, to see how those
programs are launched. Just be careful to avoid
collateral damage. If the software is just for checking
for updates and nothing else, there might not be any side
effects from disabling it. If it is licensing software,
there might be blowback if they're disabled.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

Any time you attempt something that could upset your computer,
make sure you have backups to restore any mistakes...

Paul
 
N

Nil

Anyone have additional info about a sleezy company called ArcSoft and
two processes they have managed to sneak onto my freshly formatted
system? (ACDaemon.exe and ACService.exe). I am very curious how these
pricks got their spyware crap onto my system, I've never used their
useless products before.
Click to expand...

Yes, I've had to deal with Arcsoft before. About a year and a half ago
I bought an external hard disk that came bundled with "Arcsoft
TotalMedia Backup". During the installation it silently installed
another program called "Button Manager". My antivirus identified it as
spyware. I contacted Arcsoft to see what the heck "Button Manager" was,
in case it was a false positive identification. They did respond, but
only gave me a generic answer, which was "reinstall the software". I
traded three more emails with them, begging them to please answer the
question. In all cases, they did respond, but avoided directly
answering me. I'm pretty sure the responses were from a human, not a
bot. Eventually I gave up. The software was crap anyway, so I dumped
it.
 
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