Avira Complains Freemium.Com Due To Adware

German antivirus company Avira has filed a lawsuit against the download site Freemium.com because users tricked into installing adware and potentially unwanted software. "It is time to tackle adware directly at the source," said Avira's CEO Tavis Witteveen.

"Freemium.com engages in unfair competition that violates the privacy rights of consumers and invalid contracts used", he tells. Through Freemium.com kinds of programs can be downloaded. The problem is the installation tool of Freemium, a "wrapper", which, according to Avira as potentially unwanted programs may be classified. The tool would use social engineering to users, in addition to the desired software, also letting unwanted applications installed.

The wrapper according to the virus fighter compared with ten layers of wrapping paper for a gift, where there is much room for surprises. Who one program through the wrapper will download may eventually end up with four additional programs, two browser extensions and a desktop link to a gaming site. The wrapper is also applied to other download sites, such as ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG, an investor in Freemium.com and the download portal of Computerbild.de, a website publisher Axel Springer.

Test: Virus Still Gives Many False Alarms

It is still common for virus scanners and security software wrongly clean consider software as malware, sometimes causing millions of users can get duped and even important files can lose. According to a test of the Austrian test lab AV-Comparatives.


According to the test lab, it is important to not only to measure the detection of malware in the testing of anti-virus software, but also the reliability. A part of the trustworthiness is dealing with clean files, and it does not give false alarms, the so-called 'false positives'. "False positives are an important yardstick for the quality of anti-virus software. A false positive notification from a customer can provide a lot of work and support to remedy the problem. Sometimes it can even lead to data loss and system inaccessible," said the test lab.

During the test from AV-Comparatives gave ESET, Microsoft Security Essentials and Panda Security no false alarms.Kaspersky Lab, Lavasoft, Tencent, Bitdefender, Emsisoft, Trend Micro, BullGuard, eScan, Avira, AVG, McAfee and Sophos was fewer than nine times the error. Fortinet, Quick Heal, F-Secure and Threat Track saw 12 to 18 clean files for malware. Avast and Baidu exciting with respectively 35 and 139 false alarms crown.

The impact varies by product. Fortinet regarded as Adobe Acrobat as malware, and Threat Track this occurs when the Symantec software. Avast see the Trend Micro software again for malware and multiple virus scanners to choke on a game.

Avira Tool For Lost iPhone Logins Sent Over HTTP

A free tool from antivirus company Avira for finding stolen or lost iPhones appeared to send unencrypted passwords over HTTP. This would allow an attacker who get the network traffic could eavesdrop usernames, passwords and other sensitive information.

It discovered security researcher David Coomber. According Coomber were the passwords that the Avira Mobile Security iOS app sent well protected by the weak MD5 algorithm, but would offer no protection against an attacker could sniff network traffic. Mobile Security is an app that allows users to trace five lost or stolen iPhones. Also, users can check via the tool or their e-mail was hacked, the address book or safe and iOS is up to date. Avira was informed on July 17 and published on September 3 version 1.5.11 in which the issue is resolved.

Avira Wins Lawsuit Over Blocking Adware

The German antivirus company Avira has a lawsuit won so that a program of a German publisher simply as "potentially unwanted software" (PUP) can remain label. It is a download manager game Moorhuhn Remake publisher Freemium. Avira warned users to download manager, because the additional software could download.

It's common for software publishers programs and games with all sorts of bundling other software, including adware or test versions of other programs. Avira warns users before, but it does provide the ability to download and install the software. In this case it was a download manager posing as the game Moorhuhn Remake but was bundled with various other programs.

Freemium went to court in Berlin and demanded that Avira would stop alert, reports Computerworld . According to the business users themselves could determine whether additional programs were downloaded, but the two parties differed about the transparency of this process. Avira stated that there was no clear link between the game and the other bundled applications. It was in this case for applications such as PC Tuneup, Driver Finder and Super Easy Registry Cleaner.

The conditions for users would be unclear. Then Avira decided to classify the download manager as PUP. Freemium claims that revenues since February, bisected by the blockade of Avira. As a remedy, the publisher demanded a compensation of 250,000 euros for each offense and imprisonment for up to six months for the director of Avira. The German court was not here, and decided to dismiss the lawsuit. Additionally Freemium was sentenced to pay court costs of 500,000 euros.

Free Virus Scanners Convince On Mac OS X

Mac OS X has to do with much less malware than Windows, most recently in a report revealed by the Finnish anti-virus firm F-Secure. Yet there are also threats to Apple's operating system, which mainly via pirated software and downloading software from the wrong source managed to spread. The reason for the German testing body AV-Test to test ten paid and free virus for OS X.

"Criminals are always looking for groups that are worthy to steal. The now become big group of Mac users is a good target," said Maik Morgenstern of AV-Test. For the test, we looked at various components such as malware detection, false positives, tax system and features. The detection test worked with an "on-demand" scan and an "on-access" scanning. For these two tests were used in a total of 244 malware instances.

Average know the scanners to detect 91% of malware. This percentage is mainly due ClamXav brought down, which scored 36.6% and 54.7% respectively. The other virus scanners are above 88%, with Avira and Symantec both tests score even 100%. However, Avira is a free product. The free virus scanner Avast convinces with a score of 100% and 98.8%.

When it comes to system load Symantec puts the best score down. Copying files to 26,6GB took no scanner 66.1 seconds.The virus took an average of 75.4 seconds. Symantec sitting there with 66.2 seconds, well below while Intego with 97.9 seconds is the greatest strain on the system. Regarding "false positives," the unjustified considering clean files as malware, no single scanner was in the wrong. On ClamXav after all were virus by AV-Test certification. Below the results of the on-demand scan.

Anti-virus Company Provides Alarm After 22 Million Toolbars

Antivirus company Avira has sounded the alarm after the last month 22 million toolbars, plug-ins that display ads, programs that hijack search results and other "potentially unwanted software" (PUA) detected on users' computers. In most cases, the toolbars and adware are bundled with other programs. The virus fighter calls the installation procedures of this type of program is misleading.

The virus scanner from Avira will also detect all software that injects malicious content or an excessive amount of requests personal information. "We believe in free Internet and therefore accept advertising as a means to sponsor content. Downloading software does not mean that you agree to install unwanted or unknown applications on your device," says the virus fighter.

Notorious programs

The five programs Avira most encountered are iLivid, an app that results to ilivid.com forward and all browsers try to infect your computer, SeaSuite, a tool bar that displays ads and injects websites Soft Pulse, a bundle that installs toolbars, NexLive, a browser plug-in that modifies browser settings and OptimizerPro, which monitors the browsing habits and pop-up displays advertisements.

The virus fighter has recently released new guidelines for software developers who need to reduce the amount of unwanted software. It is about rules and behavior where the software should adhere to. It does not, it can be labeled as unwanted software and removed. "Nevertheless, it is extremely important that users understand the risks and protect themselves," Avira says.