Homepage protecting with SB - Ad-Aware protests...

Discussion in 'SpywareBlaster & Other Forum' started by Zidane, Nov 14, 2003.

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  1. Zidane

    Zidane Registered Member

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    I found that Spyware Blaster has "homepage lock" yesterday - that I can lock my homepage against hijacking - good thing indeed :)

    I ran Ad-Aware with the newest database today, it found one suspicious registry entry and commented it "RegKey - Vulnerability - Comment: Manual start page setting restricted", I thought it could be some weird spyware and deleted the entry, then looked in Tools in Explorer - and oops, the "homepage lock" was away... so it seems that Ad-Aware doesnt like this SB function and thinks it is some "vulnerability", as commented...

    Why Ad-Aware does this? What vulnerability can it see in the homepage protecting? I think it is some weird false positive, can you do something with that? :)
     
    Zidane, Nov 14, 2003
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  2. LowWaterMark

    LowWaterMark Administrator

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    Actually, Ad-aware is not unique in pointing out that the home page restriction exists on the system it is scanning. HijackThis does it as well. The reason that these security tools point this out is because some spyware also places this same restriction on your system "after it has hijacked the browser home page". They do it so that the user can't change the home page back by themselves. So, for some people these tools are doing them a favor by letting them fix this restriction.

    I would not think of this as Ad-aware conflicting in any way with tools like SpywareBlaster and Spybot S&D, both of which have the ability to restrict this feature, it's just these tools are providing their users with information and access to these same features.

    Edit: Please note one important thing about this specific setting though... It doesn't prevent home page hijacking at all. It merely locks the ability for a person sitting at the computer (at the IE Internet Options screen) from changing the home page manually. It's probably most useful if you have a guest using your computer and you don't want them changing your home page on you.
     
    LowWaterMark, Nov 14, 2003
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  3. Zidane

    Zidane Registered Member

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    Aha, so it is not a problem... but interesting is, that some time ago I had homepage protected with Spybot SD - Spybot can do it too - and Ad-Aware was quiet, no protesting - was the registry entry added by Spybot different than entry added by SB, so Ad-Aware didnt point the SD protection, but pointed the SB stuff?

    But thanks, I will move this AA alert to Ignored :)

    Edit: Maybe Ad-Aware just didnt pointed this stuff at all, it was some time ago :) Maybe if I set the SD homepage protecting today, AA will point to it too :)
     
    Zidane, Nov 14, 2003
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  4. LowWaterMark

    LowWaterMark Administrator

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    Yes, that is probably what happened. Ad-aware most likely added the detection and ability to fix this setting between then and now.
     
    LowWaterMark, Nov 14, 2003
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  5. JayK

    JayK Poster

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    If I remember correctly, Adaware also recently (well actually 2 mths or so) added detection if reg files are being handled by or assoicated with a third party program like Scriptrap, scriptsentry etc...

    I recall a thread in spywareinfo forums where it led to a big stink...

    That's the problem with a newbie blindly using software without understanding, sometimes said software makes unusual changes that another software picks up as suspicious :)
     
    JayK, Nov 16, 2003
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