SB 3.1 and Ad-Aware

Hi,

My apologies if this has already been brought up, but I didn't do a search. Also, because of the combination of software involved, it might more properly belong under Software than here.

Anyway -- in SB 3.1, under Tools/Misc. IE I've ticked the Disable Home Page Settings, which is probably a good "generic" protection against hijackers in addition to the ones SB specifically protects against.

Ad-Aware doesn't like this, however -- it considers the resulting registry entry as a low-risk vulnerability, for some reason. It's easy enough to add it to AA's ignore list, but I can't help but wonder if this is a compatilbility problem.

Are others here who use both AA and SB (probably a lot of us) getting this too?

Best,
Mike

 

Hi MikeBCda,

IMO the Disable option should primarily be used to stop fellow users of the same computer of changing the settings. This is because hijackers will not be bothered by the fact that this option is disabled.
Some hijackers even use this Disable settings themselves to make it harder for you to change the hijacked page back. Which is exactly the reason why AdAware flags this as a sign of a possible vulnerability.

HTH,

Pieter

 

Thanks Pieter,

Possibly the "problem" started because -- and hopefully Javacool will catch this -- neither the site description nor the Help are particularly clear (to me, anyway) that the protection is against other users rather than from hijackers. I'd posted essentially the same query over at Kill-Spyware, which now has an Ad-Aware support forum, in case it might mean looking at a definitions revision for AA, and got pretty much the same explanation from them.

Under the circumstances, I've now disabled that part of SB's protection as unnecessary in my situation and contributing to conflict between analysis-and-cleaning programs. So now the only thing AA catches, and which is in its Ignore list, is that Alexa (sp?) thing which it sounds like anyone with Win and IE has to just put up with.

Thanks again, and best,
Mike