I found that the new version of AVG was giving me 216 warnings regarding
activex controls. I contacted AVG and below is their reply which I
interpret as saying, trust AVG alone and give up on the notion of a
layered defence. I think I will start looking for an alternative to AVG.

Chris (Hunt)

------------------------

Dear Sir/Madam,

thank you for your email.

According to your e-mail, we would like to inform you with that, the
situation, which you have described is most probably really caused by
using Spyware Blaster security application on your computer, which
contains "immunize" feature. This feature is causing that, it will
overwrite mentioned ActiveX registry entries by it's own values to
avoid some spyware to overvrite these registry keys by malicious
values. However, because the Spyware Blaster is overwriting the same
registry values as malware, it is very hard to recognize, which values
are overwritten by Spyware Blaster and which by real malware,
therefore these registry entries are detected as infected. Generally
(not even by our company), the use of more than one security system
under the same operating system is NOT recommended because of possible
conflict in their main parts, usually in the resident scanning system,
etc. It could, unfortunately, cause unexpected failures to your
system.

The situation, which you have described is caused by incompatibility
between AVG and Spyware Blaster security application on your computer
and we would like to recommend you to uninstall Spyware Blaster and
all the other security applications from your computer (if you are
using any) to avoid possible conflict situations between AVG and the
other software.

We would like to inform you with that, if you will use AVG Anti-Virus
network edition 8.0 on your computers and if it will be fully updated,
then your computer will be protected against all of the latest
viruses, spyware, trojan horses and the other malware.

For more information about the situation, which you have described, we
would like to reccommend you to visit our FAQ on the following web
page: http://www.avg.com/ww.faq.num-1198#faq_1198

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding, it is appreciated.

Answers to the most common questions can be found here as well:
http://www.avg.com/faq/

Best regards,

David Streichl
AVG Technical Support

(From AVG): we would like to recommend you to uninstall Spyware Blaster and
all the other security applications from your computer (if you are
using any) to avoid possible conflict situations between AVG and the
other software.

An "ActiveX Compatibility" registry key is a result of the "Immunize" function included in some anti-spyware programs (e.g.: "Spybot search & destroy", "Spyware blaster",...)

The key contains the same registry entries as the actual threats, thus preventing them from working correctly. Some anti-spyware programs use this method to prevent launching of the malware. Unfortunately, these parts are still detected by AVG signatures and that is why AVG marks them as infected.

To assure protection provided by AVG against these threats, it is not possible to remove such signatures from AVG virus bases.

Because of this, "Immunize" function included in above mentioned softwares is NOT compatible with AVG products.

then what can we do, cause im getting the same problem when i just ran a full system scan now??? should i just ignore the ones that say "Active X compatibility"

but the thing is i am not using SpywareBlaster iam using spybot and adware though :S

Spybot's immunisation process has the same effects as Spywareblaster - so that's what your AVG is picking up. I think you only have two choices:
1. Remove Spybot's immunisation (and lose its protection of course). OR
2. Ignore AVG's activeX warnings.

I know - neither is acceptable. The AVG guys need to sort this out, but from the responses we've seen so far, they don't seem to be interested in doing it.

No, it isn't very, generous to customers who pay

Just remove everythign AVG fidns and then re-enable SpywareBlaster or Spybots protection (My temporary solution)

does it matter if i remove or delete the files that AVG finds such as the "ActiveX compatibility"??

and lastly sometimes my AVG icon on the system tray hides away does this mean it is still active or inactive?? or it is okay to be doing so, thanks.

Removing them seems to be the approach that david28 is adopting. Since you can easily reimmunise again afterwards, there's no harm done - but why remove them if you're going to put them back again?

As a general rule, I believe it's not a good idea to quarantine a file automatically - just because your antivirus or antispyware flags it up as malware - without fully investigating what it is that's being flagged, first. False positive alerts occur with every scanner from time to time, and you could end up removing a file that's vital to your system. In theory, quarantine will allow you to restore the file if it turns out to be a false positive, but I believe there are circumstances (eg if you've removed certain essential system files) where that may not work. Of course in this case you know what these alerts are, and what's causing them (they're registry entries, not files). If I were in your position (I'm not, because I still use AVG7.5 at present) I think I'd just ignore them at present.


Is this XP? Move your cursor to the horizontal strip (taskbar) at the bottom of the screen and right click on a blank section. Choose 'Properties' and click the 'Customise' button at bottom right. Look for the AVG icon entry and select it to 'always show'. Then click on OK, and you should find that the icon no longer hides itself.

Now when i just re-boot the system the avg icon on the system tray loads up but doesnt show it just stays as "hide"

Yes this i am running on XP but does this show that the application is running/active???

Have you tried to set it to 'always show' as I explained in my previous post? If you do that, the icon should no longer 'hide', as you describe here.


If you right click on the icon, do you get a little menu? And do the selections work? If they do, then the icon is active. Even if the icon is hidden, you can still click 'show hidden icons' (hover your mouse over that little circular button) and check whether it's active in the same way.

If you want to see whether the various parts of the AVG installation are active, use Task Manager. (Right click on a blank section of the toolbar at bottom of screen and select the 'Processes' tab.)

Alan, Any idea when they release SP1?

Removing them seems to be the approach that david28 is adopting. Since you can easily reimmunise again afterwards, there's no harm done - but why remove them if you're going to put them back again?
As a general rule, I believe it's not a good idea to quarantine a file automatically - just because your antivirus or antispyware flags it up as malware - without fully investigating what it is that's being flagged, first. False positive alerts occur with every scanner from time to time, and you could end up removing a file that's vital to your system. In theory, quarantine will allow you to restore the file if it turns out to be a false positive, but I believe there are circumstances (eg if you've removed certain essential system files) where that may not work. Of course in this case you know what these alerts are, and what's causing them (they're registry entries, not files). If I were in your position (I'm not, because I still use AVG7.5 at present) I think I'd just ignore them at present.


Is this XP? Move your cursor to the horizontal strip (taskbar) at the bottom of the screen and right click on a blank section. Choose 'Properties' and click the 'Customise' button at bottom right. Look for the AVG icon entry and select it to 'always show'. Then click on OK, and you should find that the icon no longer hides itself.

Does it make a difference if we delete the ActiveX avg 8 picks up?
Will anything happen to our computer?

The whole computer scan brings no infections but 216 "warnings" all related to active x
The C:\ drive scan produces no infections and no warnings. Definitely odd. And I agree that this is most definitely false positives.

I deleted spywareblaster & spybot....what spyware protection do you suggest?

I think AVG has finally resolved the issue. There was a substantial update today. I did the update and ran a full scan (I have AVG 8 Free) - that horrific list of keyloggers and trojans and adwares did not show up. Yay!

Until AVG updates to 9 and off we'll go again. <sigh>

The next steps are from AVG's forum on their website: