FAQ

Strange behavior of Internet Explorer on your PC (automatic pop-up of web pages with suspicious or commercial content) or automatic redirection of your home page to another one (again with some problematic or suspicious content) may not be caused by the presence of a virus but another malware also known as ADWARE or SPYWARE.

These kinds of malware can not be clasified as viruses, which is the reason why they are not detected by anti-virus programs.
In case you do not have AVG Anti-Malware or AVG Internet Security edition (both of which contain the Anti-Spyware component), we recommend you to use standalone AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5 which is designed to detect and remove this type of malware.
You can download it here: http://www.avg.com/doc/programs.

With the release of AVG Anti-Virus 7.5, detection of Adware/Spyware (or Potentially Unwanted Programs) has been added to AVG.
"Potentially Unwanted Program" files are not be detected as a virus, even though they sometimes act very similarly. The reason is that the Potentially Unwanted Programs are usually installed legitimately as a part of another program (often designated as an "AD-Supported program" – in which the End User License Agreement typically prompts the user to accept that, in addition to the desired program, an additional program (Potentially Unwanted Program) will also be installed).
AVG 7.5 is able to detect some Potentially Unwanted Programs and remove the detected files. It is necessary to mention that AVG is NOT primarily designed to remove these unwanted programs, and all of their related components. For these Potentially Unwanted Programs, AVG is intended mainly as a source of valuable information that there is a potential threat on your PC which probably needs to be removed. Removal of the "Potentially Unwanted Program" can be done with the AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5. It is designed for searching and removing malware like this. You can download it here: http://www.avg.com/download-7.

NOTE: Removal of the Potentially Unwanted Programs can result in damage to the AD-Supported program which was installed with them.

If AVG has detected a "Potentially Unwanted Program" on your computer that is not detected by your anti-spyware program, please send us the Test result* as an email attachment. We will provide support on the appropriate actions to be taken to remove the suspicious file.

* Submitting a Test result to AVG Technologies (support@avg.com):

1. Start AVG 7.5 and select "Start complete test" from the Tests menu.
   The F4 key can also be used to start the test. 
2.  Once the test is finished, close the window and click on the Test Results button. 
3.  Scroll down do the bottom of the Test Results and double click on the latest Complete scan. 
4.  Expand the Program menu and select the "Export list to file" option. 
5.  Select the destination folder to save the results. 
6.  Send the saved *.cvs file as an attachment to your email.
   

At this moment we know 3 programs which are using this rootkit technology provided by Sony DRM. All these trojan horses are detected by AVG as well as the Sony rootkit driver. However, if a trojan using any rootkit technology is successfully installed on a target computer, unfortunately antivirus programs (including AVG) are unable to find it because the API calls are filtered.

In a case where you have a root-kitted computer you can do following:

• reboot the computer into Safe mode (using the F8 key while restarting) and run the AVG Complete Test (sometimes it's enough)
• put the hard disk into another computer and scan it this way (this is probably the best method)
• run a dedicated anti-rootkit tool; we recommend using AVG Anti-Rootkit application available for free download here

Tracking cookies are not viruses or malicious code. Cookies are only text files and therefore cannot be dangerous to your computer.

The main purpose of cookies is to identify users and possibly prepare customized web pages for them. When you enter a web site using cookies, you may be asked to fill in a form providing such information as your name and interests. This information is sent to your web browser as a cookie file. The next time you go to the same web site, your browser will send the cookie to the web server. The server can use this information to present you with custom web pages.

If you don’t want to use cookies you can check the settings of Internet Explorer browser to accept/deny the cookie file. More information can be found at:
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cookies.mspx
question " If You Want to Control Which Cookies You Accept"

If you are using a Mozilla Firefox browser, you can find more information at:
http://mozilla.gunnars.net/firefox_help_firefox_cookie_tutorial.html

More information about cookie files can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie

You can also set AVG to not detect cookies on your computer:

1. Resident Shield settings
- open AVG Control Center
- double-click on the AVG Resident Shield component
- unmark the "Scan cookies" option

2. AVG test settings
* please note, that you should set it separately for every AVG test that you use:
- open AVG Test Center in Advanced Interface
- open menu Tests-Test Manager
- choose test - and use "Edit" button
- on tab "Scan Details" you can disable the detection of cookies