Could I be infected?

[Jenjer]

I have AVG, and the firewall that comes with my PC. In addition, I run the anti malwarebytes free program regularly. I have done this since early summer of this year when I apparently became one of the first in my area to be infected with a new trojan. it was so new that AVG identified but was unable to quarantine it. When I sent AVG an email asking how to quarantine it, they asked me to send a link back that would allow them to look at the issue. The Trojan actually killed my operating system to prevent me from sending the information to AVG. Which, of course, crashed my entire system. I had pay to have the Trojan manually removed and my hard drive taken to a computer repair to restore. It was an awful experience. Since then, I've had one scare: anti malwarebytes identified a rootkit trojan, but fortunately it was one that Kaspersky cleaned up, and my computer was fine. That was several months ago.

Now to the oddness. AVG started identifying trojans on my computer again a couple of days ago. When I ran the full scan, it showed that the trojans were 'inactive' until last night when I had a trojan that was identified but (again) not quarantined. AVG software seemed unconcerned with it, but I kind of freaked out, and ran the anti-malwarebytes full scan, which showed my PC was clean. Thinking it might be another rootkit issue, I also ran Kaspersky (clean) and a new rootkit program from gamer, which also came up clean. So, yeah, I probably over-installed programs. But I'm thinking my PC clean so all is well. I shut my PC off and went to bed.

This morning, my PC took over 15 minutes for windows to open on it. I was on the phone to the computer guy by the time it finally came up because I thought my computer had crashed. I went in and tried to uninstall all the programs I had installed, but I couldn't find the gamer or Kaspersky software to uninstall. I did uninstall anti-malwarebytes software. After that, my PC seemed okay, although still very slow. Except my AVG shortcut icon kept moving around in the menu bar, which it has never done before. And it is still taking about five minutes for windows to come back up after I shut it down. The last time I shut it down, and restarted it, the AVG shortcut icon was completely missing from my shortcut toolbar. When I click on the desktop icon, it comes up showing that everything is active, but the shortcut has simply disappeared from the toolbar. Very odd.

While looking for programs to run on my computer the other night, I came across some scary information about new rogue viruses on this forum. I don't want to be a PC hypochondriac, but it seems that only someone with administrative access could be moving my AVG shortcut around. Or there could be a far less scary explanation, I just don't know what it is. Anti malwarebytes and AVG scans continue to show that my PC is clean. So, is it possible I have some kind of rootkit virus that these programs didn't catch?

Thank you so much for your help.

[Jenjer]

okay -- the AVG toolbar icon is back. My PC is so slow that it could be it just took it 30 minutes to boot. Seriously, that is how slowly my PC is running. What can I do about this? Or is this the wrong forum to ask that question?

[Firefox]

Hello and welcome to Malwarebytes

Sorry you are having issues. The slowness can be all the different tools you are installing. Stop installing tools for now, and its best if you seek assistance from the experts so that they can take a look at your logs and guide you step by step what needs to be removed and cleaned up. Pick one of the options below to get expert assistance and to get your computer checked out.

If you think you are infected, here are the steps needed to get your computer cleaned....

Please read the following so that you can begin the cleaning process:

IMPORTANT: Don't use any temporary file cleaners unless requested - this can cause data loss and make recovery difficult

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