This is strange should I be concerned?

@apples99 (6556)
United States
December 20, 2008 10:51pm CST
Ok I just turned on my computer on about 15 minutes ago, and I was changing my screen saver and after that, I opened my web browser and this message appeared out of the blue, and it said male wear detected please scan computer with free software, and the strange thing is the message didnt come from my own security software I have AVG the free version but the message came from out of no where from some other source, anyway the massage wanted me to download some sort of software to my computer and when I tried to press the cancel button it started to download anyway I had to close my browser to stop the strange software from downloading to my computer it was really wired should I be concerned?
3 people like this
15 responses
• United Kingdom
21 Dec 08
One thing you should never do is agree to any third party pop up message that says you have malware or anything else on your system as it is likely that it is a virus of some sort. You AVG is more than efficient to do the job. After having had this experience make sure that you scan your system using your AVG product. Good luck. Andrew
@apples99 (6556)
• United States
22 Dec 08
Hey there thanks for responding I was wondering how many security soft wares can I have on my computer can I have more then one?
23 Dec 08
Andrew is very correct, I agree. AVG is a good choice in anti virus software and I know because I use it. Don't install more than one anti virus software, but you can install more than one anti-spyware software as these are just scanners who do not run on your system once you close them down.
@SViswan (12051)
• India
22 Dec 08
It is a virus...I had the same problem recently. What I had to do was then to launch my AVG free version software to scan my computer and it removed all the viruses. That's one problem I guess with the free version....you need to start the scan manually for it to find these pop up viruses.
@SViswan (12051)
• India
22 Dec 08
oops....technically not the right term 'virus'...but I was trying to put it in layman's language. Whatever it is, it's irritating to have that window popping up every time.
@apples99 (6556)
• United States
24 Dec 08
That's ok I under stood what you meant besides we have all had those mylot spelling errors, anyway thanks for responding and I closed my browser right away after I realised that it was trying to download by its self, just to be safe. happy posting and enjoy your holiday.
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
21 Dec 08
Yes, it's a virus. I used to have a problem with something called Stop Sign, I think it was, and it was a pain to get rid of. Do a scan with AVG but it might not find it. I think I had to end up getting Norton to get rid of it. It will continue to pop up again and again if it's the same one I had. You said that you changed your screen saver. Did you download any from the web? If so, that's where you picked up the virus.
@apples99 (6556)
• United States
21 Dec 08
Oh my goodness I had a feeling it might be thats why I closed my web browser right away thanks for responding.
• United States
21 Dec 08
Yes, you should be concerned. What was downloaded (closing your browser was too late) was mal-ware/spyware/hijacker program. Visit this website: www.geekstogo.com They offer free help to rid your computer of such programs. Registry is free and allows for more personal help. On their home page, scroll down, and on the right-hand side column there is a column named "Forums". The first three (How-to Guides, Malware Removal, Removal Guides) are there to help you, step-by-step, to remove the program. Good luck. celtic
@apples99 (6556)
• United States
21 Dec 08
Thanks for the info link I will defintly check it out.
@camomom (7535)
• United States
27 Dec 08
Yup, could be a virus.
@fatsanta (84)
• United States
21 Dec 08
Yes. It is a virus and they are trying to make you download it; DONT! That happend to me to so i had to shut down the operation.
@apples99 (6556)
• United States
21 Dec 08
I thought it might be a virus because I could not close the Mysterious program without closing my web browser because the program was trying to download itself anyway I closed my browser right away to stop it, thank-you for responding.
@cheenlly (3477)
• Philippines
21 Dec 08
If you get that screen saver form the web then maybe that initiate the virus. I used to experienced that before and from that day on i have learned my lesson not to get any on the web. If i do so i make sure that the website is safe. Well my PC has never been good since that and I think i have eliminated that problem when i reformat my computer. As for your PC problem, i think you have to clean that before it ruins your PC. Run your AVG free version to scan and clean it.
• India
21 Dec 08
Ya you should defienetly be concerned because its a virus which is spreading across various countries and i think that you have done the right thing by eliminating the download and disabling from affecting your computer..i think i have heard somewhat similar to this virus in my place and i think that these sort of viruses enter your computer through internet and when you open any site which is not good for browsing....happy mylotting....
• United States
22 Dec 08
I had that a few weeks ago before I had to crash my computer.. That IS a virus! Some times a virus will look like a microsoft download that pops up from nowhere.. Don't do it.. and even if you don't download the program I can almost bet you are going to start having problems in the near future, at least I did. scan with the free online scanners.. no ONE virus scanner can detect everything.. this is why it is best to scan with more than a couple.
@nixxi76 (3191)
• Canada
22 Dec 08
If you're talking about Malaware, then yes this is a very bad bad virus. This happened to me before and it effected everything from the speed of typing on my keyboard to anything else you can think of. I would get these darn pop ups all the time saying that I needed to download this antivirus software from this one certain website. I phoned HP Compaq and they told me what to do and what this virus was all about. She told me another country created this and I picked it up from certain websites that I've visited and what they do is send these pop ups and get you to purchase their software and scam you with your credit card numbers. She adviced me to save nothing on my computer and just do a total recovery so I thought I was going to lose tons of pictures and other music files and such until I put them on a different server and saved them there like facebook.com or photobucket.com. She said that if I store all my pictures on a cd then go to reinstall them, it would be carrying the virus and when I went to install them back onto my computer then it would reinstall the virus as well. To find out if you have malaware, you need to go to your start menu, type malaware in your search space, let it do a search and if you have it try a restore to an earlier date when you think your computer was okay, restart your computer then try the search again and if it's gone then you're lucky and okay, otherwise if it comes up again, then you should do a recovery with your disk softwares that you got when you bought your computer I hope this helps! Good luck and merry christmas
• India
21 Dec 08
Whenever something pops up saying to download never do it even if free.If you think you need an anti malware search the net for good ones and download them from there.
@wjcp2008 (106)
• China
21 Dec 08
This should be concerned.When we are surfing online,we should be more careful.
• United States
22 Dec 08
=P this is why I got the Adblock plus extension for Firefox. UAC in Vista protects me extra. I consider linux as an alternative, but No I like my computer the way it is. you shouldn't be concerned unless you see much more pop ups, in that case its a trojan downloader
• United States
22 Dec 08
sounds like a virus to me, scan your computer with avg which is already on your computer right? that's the safest way and you sound be ok
@jabaz007 (252)
• India
21 Dec 08
Dont donwload its virus.