Lavasoft's adaware detected it, and quarantined it, as the yBanker variety which it says steals banking information from you.

Description: C:\Program Files (x86)\AC Tool\ACTool.exe Family Name: Win32.TrojanSpy.Banker Clean status: Success Item ID: 556133 Family ID: 1058

Just a heads up on this bullshit of theirs.

i dunno i never use firewall or any protection for my comp and i never EVER had a problem with viruses etc.
My comps just fine. only thing i ever use to check if i actually have 1 is programs>run>msconfig

Heh, then you are wide open to be raped. I was just invaded by something that advertised over my speakers commercials every few seconds. I killed it but I got it because to learn what it is I do I must go to the bad seedy places. Places that you are bound to catch a computer STD, or worse, but I know that going in. Just depends how much you are willing to risk to learn what it is you need to know which brings me to the point I just made to you on the other thread. They are very much interrelated.

Dunno what you mean by risk to learn?
Im good in bed if its about porn sites -.-

But, i never caught a virus aka STD on my comp. More chance in real life which is very low

How are you sure you don't have a virus if you don't have a firewall or antivirus software to pick it up. You'd literally have to know how to find any kind of malicious piece of software and check for it all the time just about.

Some are worms and spread through flaws in windows and other programs, which doesn't even require you to be using the web in some cases...just simply be connected without a firewall and unpatched software (Windows has all kinds). The blaster virus is just one of the worms I can remember getting once when I opened my PC through DMZ because I was too lazy to code in the specific ports for games a couple or few years even back.

Ever since I've been using the firefox browser I haven't had any issues..except for some popups that slip through sometimes...and likely with malicious code that actually works for those using IE.

Ahk, what I grabbed yesterday was freaking weird. I knew when I grabbed it and it was easy to kill YET 4 anti-virus and 3 spyware/malware programs said I was fine. Yep, I am fine with a radio commercial going as you are scanning to see if I am infected. I honestly no longer trust AV or anti-malware stuff.

The program that would load is msa.exe but doing a web search was not this msa. I would kill the process and it would attempt to come back but sometimes crash bringing up a pop up error box. Rather amusing to keep getting radio commercials (for major brand stuff too) with only a 30 sec to 1 min pause between. I simply deleted the file in safe mode and cleaned my registry afterwards and I am fine but still I am laughing over it. What I do not laugh over is when I caught Virtumonde last year and nothing could help me. Nothing found it and to this day I do not know what infected me but the only cure was a reformat.

As many hours as I spend in front of my PC I can feel when something has attacked me.

So, I wonder if not having an AV is bad or indifferent since I have had even the ESET for pay fail me recently.

I would not doubt that some smaller AV companies may even send out some cash flow to have new ones written. Malicious software generates a lot of revenue -- for advertising and AV, now AntiSpy, Rootkits, and others, but they seem to be all the same to me.

There seems to be a lot of virii that aren't easily removed with AVG and/or norton because I've seen both just sit there and leave the infection. If you want it done right, you just about have to do it yourself anyways so what's the point of running the scan sometimes.

Despite the problems with the software getting attacked itself and outright not detecting or working, I still feel more comfortable running the scans because they do at least keep on top of new threats and fixes.

is there a way to make ad aware leave ac tools alone, enev if i shut down ad aware it still sees ac tool as malicious and closes it.

I just removed adaware. I didn't care to leave it running and it erased the ACTool exe on me so I kicked Adaware to the curb.

By FAR the easiest solution to this sort of problem (that I've found) is simply to use a virtual machine for running ANYTHING that I download or want to check out. I have a pre-built VM module that I simply copy to make my sacrificial lamb, then I access the (potentially) "dangerous" (or risky) content using the VM. I even use it when I'm "just surfing", on the off-chance I catch a drive-by zero-day, hack (I'm looking at you, Adobe Flash!)...

As long as the VM image remains essentially clean and operational, I continue using it, but whenever it gets thoroughly raped, I simply close it down, wipe the image, and copy a new one from my pre-build. Takes about 15 minutes and everything's wonderful again.

IMHO, this is easily the safest and best means to protect yourself, and given your statement about what you need to do for your job, DaMob, I'd imagine would make your life a lot easier!

-Triane

PS: Hi Everyone! -- It's been a LONG time since I've been through these parts, but it's good to see the community still surviving!

Hey man long time no see.

Yeah, I tried VMWare and it would tear out my network and I had to reinstall but damn I loved it. When things settle down I am going to give virtual box a try as it is supposedly open source unlike VMWare and I have heard it runs extremely well for people.

Heya! -- ya, it's been a while since I've posted anything here, but I still stroll through from time to time

If you're on FaceBook or MSN Spaces, and so inclined, send me an email (triane@botanybay.net should still be working) and I'll add you to my Friends (same goes for any of you other fellow-oldies - Cam, Ipa etc.!)

With regard to VMWare, I haven't actually tried it yet; I've been using MS Virtual PC and MS Virtual Server, which both work pretty well as long as your client OS is Windows

Sadly, I don't have ACTool anymore, and would have to look pretty long and hard to find any of the macros I wrote so long ago (presuming they're still findable!)... It's a shame that none of them appear to be available on the site any longer! -- They'd be a fun, sentimental reminder of a pretty cool slice of time for me! (For a while there, esp during the Spike craze, it all felt so "wild-west/frontier"-ish )

I'll also echo the sentiments I saw expressed somewhere else around here: I have to thank AC-Tool (both the application and the community) for re-awakening my programming skills. Until I started writing AC macros ~2002, I'd largely left those skills to rot since somewhere ~1995; now I'm making money coding PHP, JavaScript and C#! (although it's clear that on the latter, I am WOEFULLY far behind the bleeding edge of the curve!).

Anyway, like I said before, it's great to touch base once again, and I'm quite glad to see that, although much less frenetically, this community is still going!

-Triane

PS: Hehe -- although I fear I've now hijacked this thread and am risking a patented IPA-tongue-lashing

Heheheh, those were the days, including the Ipa tongue lashings, but sadly they are gone. My macro I just moved away from ACTool finally and it has its own site. I miss those days when the intellectual conversations were the norm now just look at this site and what has become of it.

Hehe -- I dropped in today to look around, and ended up reading a ton of old posts (just for nostalgias' sake) and even left a few old-style messages, just for kicks. Hope life's treatin' you well!

-Triane