Windows 10: Another false positive for AdwCleaner 6.030 today

A lot of junkware/crapware/PUPs and even malware can respawn from Google Sync (and I suppose from Firefox sync, as well). In the malware removal fora, one of the primary steps to clear the PUPs/infections entails turning off sync and clearing out all the wonky settings/crap in the user's Google profile.

It rather defeats the purpose of a nuke/pave for "infection" or malware, only to carry over junk from Google sync or from an infected Chrome profile onto the fresh install, does it not?
If I were going to the trouble of a fresh Windows install, I would rebuild my browser profiles fresh, from scratch, in order to avoid bringing over old junk or worse.

Just a thought,
MM

 

Don't know about Chrome but with FF you can choose what to sync. I sync only Bookmarks and passwords from system to system. No junk comes over like that.

 

Hi there

if you really want to be safe don't sync anything --just save bookmarks etc in an EXCEL file (or similar) and then as and when you need a bookmark on another system just load it from the EXCEL spread sheet.

I've found I actually only have about 7 or 8 websites that i visit so regularly that it's easy simply to just put those on the firefox toolbar.

quite frankly the more "profiles" on systems you have to mess about with the more irritating and frustrating the whole experience becomes.

If you have so many bookmarks that you need to sync all of them you probably would be better off just googling when you want to refer to something.

People work in different ways of course so that's just my take on it.

It's also highly unlikely that if I'm using a Mobile phone that I'd need a whole slew of bookmarks that I'd use on the main computer --I tend only to use the phone for email / watching Sports / booking travel stuff - and rarely just plain "browsing".

Of course YMMV though.

As far as the original topic is concerned -- that's a mega problem with a lot of these virus scanners -- so many times quite legitimate things are thrown up as "False positives" that it rather defeats the whole purpose in using them.

My preferred method is simply to run Windows defender regularly and if there's anything untoward I just restore my system from the previous (clean of course) backup.

If Windows defender doesn't find a virus it's unlikely (not impossible though) that even if it's on a computer it actually won't do any harm.

Again this is probably against "perceived wisdom" but I've used computers for many years now and can honestly say only got into trouble once -- with Bubbledock if anybody can remember that one -- from then on I decided using cleansing stuff simply wasn't worth it --quicker simply just to restore the OS image -- very fast now with decent SSD's.

Again of course everybody works differently but TIME IS MONEY and cleansing a computer with various tools can take hours or even days and still maybe not 100%. A decent restore can take as little as 7 mins with a fast computer and SSD's.

I know which method I'd prefer to use.

Cheers
jimbo

 

I have hundreds of Bookmarks/favorites but sorted in "folders". Only this machine is running 3 OSs not counting 2 phones and another laptop. There's FF on all of them. With my memory as it is, I would be lost if I had to chase sites thru Google or Bing or...

 

Hi there

if you have that many you must be on the Net almost 24 hrs a day !!!!

As a famous politician from the UK once said (although in a totally different context of course) " On 'Yer Bike !!!!!!!!"

Or if not on a Bike - try a bar etc !!!!!

Cheers
jimbo

 

There is no way malware could be restored using sync. People just prefer the easy way. Removing everything is like asking to format in order to clean Recycle Bin. If the user has to loose data, settings, apps, you are doing it (cleaning) wrong.

I used to export bookmarks to backup, but unfortunately browsers do not allow to export nameless bookmarks. *Sad

 

Hi there

Unless using IE11 you can't normally export bookmarks - but there's nothing wrong in doing it Manually -- simply copy the URL into a text or EXCEL file.

In reverse paste the text into the browser and save the new bookmark if you want to.
It's a bit more work than simple export / import of course.

I think though IE11 can import from another browser --then you can export to a file

So IE11 still has a bit of use.

Cheers
jimbo

 

My computer is on 24/ and so it's on internet too but that doesn't mean I'm on it too. My main computer is also whole entertainment system, TV, Radio and communications so when I'm near it I use it, that doesn't mean I'm sitting in front of it all the time.

 

Hi there

just joking !!!!!

cheers
jimbo

 

Hmmm. What about selectively copying just relevant files from profile, maybe bookmarks and stored passwords?