howardw

My interaction with computers, up to this point, has been to send and receive e-mails and contribute to a writers forum. I asked around and found out I needed anti-virus, antispyware and antimalware. I did some searches and went to a few sites that rated software and chose avg free, reg cure, malwarebot. Recently I read about rogueware and found this site in the process. I've now been informed that regcure and malwarebot are fraudulemnt and or rogue. I look at this site and see malwarebot advertised on the borders of these pages under google ads. I thought I did a reasonable search on regware, I looked through 3 or 4 pages of reviews on google search and found positive reviews, I now find out I needed to read 6 or 7 pages to get to the negative ones. Finally, a friend asked how I knew this site was alright. How did I know this site isn't run by some group trying to hijack my computer. I don't know and am not sure how I'd find out if I needed too. How do you know who to trust or where to go to find out. I've read through a lot of the threads and find I'm even more confused. At present I haven't removed anything from my computer because I'm not sure about anything right now. I'm not trying to berate this site I'm just asking a basic question: Where do you start?

Snoopdogie187

well i have been getting help a lot from this site. Most of what i know is from thus site. On this site you can look up a thread about how TFS has helped you, i can not find it right now but it contains how this site has helped other people.
I would trust this site completely for anything related to computers. Since i have been apart of this site i have had less problems then most people i know and when i do have a problem they are here to help me without re formating my whole hard drive and starting over and it just has helped a lot.

Ried

Hello howardw,

Malwarebot is indeed considered rogue http://www.malwarebytes.org/forums/i...t=0&#entry8501

The Google Ads that display are just that--ads that Google is supplying. Any advertisement that may have shown up in Google Ads on this site were indadvertent, and will be brought to the attention of the owner. This may take time to rectify.

I've found this program to be quite helpful as I surf the internet:

McAfee Site Advisor--free version. The folks there check out websites and based on their findings, rate it as Safe, Unknown, Caution, or Bad.

You also may want to take a look at this article:

PC Safety and Security--What Do I Need?

Wox

also all the positive reviews you see about malwarebot and regcure are bloated, pumped up reviews paid for by the companies.
only trust reviews for reputable sources (pcmag, pcworld, softpedia, cnet, etc etc)

Steven Avery

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wox only trust reviews for reputable sources (pcmag, pcworld, softpedia, cnet, etc etc)

Hi Folks,

Imho, those sites are mixed as well, without enough policing, especially as at times they simply copy a publisher's blurb at their download site. And at times they can even get a scam review into the magazine, although that is rare and their comparison reviews of multi-products are decent. I ran into a verry dubious registry cleaner Freebie that made it into PC World "Best of" 2007 with only a publisher's article (it wasn't even really a freebie).

For security issues, I would recommend to rely especially on Wilders and Castlecops. Great forums. Gladiator Security and a couple of others, maybe DSLReports, are good.

There are other sites that specialize on Rogueware identification although for legal reasons they almost have to be too conservative - SpywareWarrior and Malwarebytes seem to be reliable. Maybe 2-Spyware and Certifiedbug, I really am trying to find out who is the most reliable sites on rogueware ID, it takes a bit of effort, especially with so much phoney stuff out there.

For general user shareware and freeware reviews and some discretion in listing products, SnapFiles and FileForum and maybe MajorGeeks (however, Geeks allows the same Google ads) are recommended, NoNags for freeware. Softpedia is not known for vetting. This is only a preliminary list, YMMV, and there are probably 5-10 other very helpful, integrity shareware/freeware sites, but the reviews on Snapfiles and Fileforum, and sometimes CNet/Download.com can be very, very helpful.

Then you have all purpose forums like TechSupportForum (I am a newbie registrant but read some and appreciate) and the excellent Donationcoder, and many others.

Why post all this ? Well, one reason is I want to know if Techsupportforum is addressing the Google ads issue mentioned above. They seem to be still plentiful, and this is a scourge on the net (even more so on some security blogs and forums). Is anyone developing a group to get Google schlock ads off their site, either by forcing Google selectivity or setting up (or at least encouraging) a non-Google alternative ? What is TSF doing ? I want to emphasize, this is not only a TSF problem, but since you have a good forum, and it was mentioned here over a half-year ago, can we have an update ?

Thanks.

Oh, one other common-sense addition to the above. On any product, especially any security product, look closely at the web-site, see if there are real people involved, folks you can call or at least have an email-support discussion. Maybe they are posting answering questions on the net, on Wilders or Donationcoder. Especially excellent are support-forums where the software issues are discussed, warts and all. (Keep in mind they have to keep out spam and could conceivably censor criticisms and some rant-criticisms should be censorable, they could be shills.) And at least a sense of real communication and presence. Do not trust "testimonials" or "review sites" that can be staged, as was mentioned above. In fact there is a whole industry of phoney spyware-and-security review sites, generally if you try to follow who is behind them, they lead nowhere. (Till you do a "who-is" and more searching.)

Shalom,
Steven Avery