Best answer by shorTcircuiT
View originalWhy do I have viruses if webroot is protecting
My wife took her laptop to Geek Squad Penn Square OKC and they said she had over 300 viruses on her system.She has webroot installed and it runs on start up. She shuts her system off when she's done using it (which is daily). Why didn't Webroot catch these?
Userlevel 7
Hi bcrnfnp
Welcome to the Community Forums.
For one thing I would doubt that she has 300 viruses on her computer despite what The Geek Squad say...more likely what they have found are non-malware program we commonly refer to as a PUA or Potentially Unwanted Applications.
These are very annoying at best in that they cause pop-ups, redirect your browser home page, and other behaviour that may slow down the computer and direct ads your way, but they are not actually doing anything bad like damaging files or stealing information. Often they are installed intentionally by you the user as browser add-ons for various tasks such as quick search tools. But they also come with the result of added annoying pop-ups and ads. Other times they 'piggy back' with other software that you installed, or try to 'sneak' onto your system entirely.
The key to avoiding them is to make sure that when downloading apps one does so from the author's own website or one that they have recommended, and not 3rd party downloading site.
WSA does detect and remove many PUA's, and more are being added, but WSA does not detect all of them. A simple browser add-on with PUA behaviour that is easy to identify and easy to remove is not likely to be detected and removed by WSA. Those that are intentionally difficult to locate and remove are. Please see THIS LINK for more information regarding Webroot's stance on these annoying programs.
To make sure that your WSA is checking for PUA's with the best proficiently, it sometimes helps to reset the PUA detection within WSA's settings. For PUA's that had previously been scanned and determined to be OK, but have since been added to detection/removal, you may want to complete the following steps:
If that does not helps and one feels or considers oneself technically proficient then one can try these steps to remove the PUAs from one's system.
But in the final analysis this whole area is one that is riven with disagreements and potential legal issues...but I seriously doubt that all they have found on her system are really viruses.
Regards, Baldrick
Welcome to the Community Forums.
For one thing I would doubt that she has 300 viruses on her computer despite what The Geek Squad say...more likely what they have found are non-malware program we commonly refer to as a PUA or Potentially Unwanted Applications.
These are very annoying at best in that they cause pop-ups, redirect your browser home page, and other behaviour that may slow down the computer and direct ads your way, but they are not actually doing anything bad like damaging files or stealing information. Often they are installed intentionally by you the user as browser add-ons for various tasks such as quick search tools. But they also come with the result of added annoying pop-ups and ads. Other times they 'piggy back' with other software that you installed, or try to 'sneak' onto your system entirely.
The key to avoiding them is to make sure that when downloading apps one does so from the author's own website or one that they have recommended, and not 3rd party downloading site.
WSA does detect and remove many PUA's, and more are being added, but WSA does not detect all of them. A simple browser add-on with PUA behaviour that is easy to identify and easy to remove is not likely to be detected and removed by WSA. Those that are intentionally difficult to locate and remove are. Please see THIS LINK for more information regarding Webroot's stance on these annoying programs.
To make sure that your WSA is checking for PUA's with the best proficiently, it sometimes helps to reset the PUA detection within WSA's settings. For PUA's that had previously been scanned and determined to be OK, but have since been added to detection/removal, you may want to complete the following steps:
- Open Webroot SecureAnywhere
- Click on ‘Advanced Settings’ from the top right
- Select ‘Scan Settings’ from the left side
- Unselect the option “Detect Potentially Unwanted Applications”
- Click on the Save button (you may have to enter in a CAPTCHA)
- Reselect the option to “Detect Potentially Unwanted Applications”
- Click on the Save button
- Run another scan with Webroot and remove any items that get detected.
If that does not helps and one feels or considers oneself technically proficient then one can try these steps to remove the PUAs from one's system.
But in the final analysis this whole area is one that is riven with disagreements and potential legal issues...but I seriously doubt that all they have found on her system are really viruses.
Regards, Baldrick
Userlevel 7
Hello bcrnfnp, welcome to the Community!
I see my quicker fingered friend ? has beaten me here LOL, but I will leave my reply up as it has some slightly different information that may be of additional assistance
I can assure you that there were NOT over 300 viruses on the computer, though I have no doubt that there were over 300 items removed. Sometimes less trained Geek Squad and other technicians simply bunch everything together, which is very very misleading.
I am 99.9% sure that what was removed was browser tracking cookies. Some AV's detect these as 'viruses', though they are nothing of the sort.
Since your wife took her computer to Geek Squad, I am assuming that her copy of WSA is from Best Buy / Geek Squad? If so, in the future you CAN take care of this yourself by using the System Optimizer feature within WSA.
Make sure you go into the Advanced Settings (Upper right corner of the WSA screen) and go over the list of items that can be removed to enable removing browser temps files and cookies.
Removal of cookies is not part of a normal scan in WSA. The scan only removes malware (virus, trojans, spyware). Since browser cookies do not harm your files or computer, they are not removed by the normal scan, but again those with the System Optimizer can run that in order to clean those out.
You can also remove these manually within your browser settings.
I hope this helps!
I see my quicker fingered friend ? has beaten me here LOL, but I will leave my reply up as it has some slightly different information that may be of additional assistance
I can assure you that there were NOT over 300 viruses on the computer, though I have no doubt that there were over 300 items removed. Sometimes less trained Geek Squad and other technicians simply bunch everything together, which is very very misleading.
I am 99.9% sure that what was removed was browser tracking cookies. Some AV's detect these as 'viruses', though they are nothing of the sort.
Since your wife took her computer to Geek Squad, I am assuming that her copy of WSA is from Best Buy / Geek Squad? If so, in the future you CAN take care of this yourself by using the System Optimizer feature within WSA.
Make sure you go into the Advanced Settings (Upper right corner of the WSA screen) and go over the list of items that can be removed to enable removing browser temps files and cookies.
Removal of cookies is not part of a normal scan in WSA. The scan only removes malware (virus, trojans, spyware). Since browser cookies do not harm your files or computer, they are not removed by the normal scan, but again those with the System Optimizer can run that in order to clean those out.
You can also remove these manually within your browser settings.
I hope this helps!
Wow...Thanks for the VERY quick replys. They made me feel better.
Userlevel 7
Hi bcrnfnp
You are most welcome. Glad that we could help.
Regards, Baldrick
You are most welcome. Glad that we could help.
Regards, Baldrick
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