Adwareaway

[adwareaway]

i notice adwareaway has come up a couple of times around here recently, but not necessarily in a good way.

http://forums.malwarebytes.org/index.php?showtopic=83363

http://forums.malwarebytes.org/index.php?showtopic=83339

run around calling a company "rogue" long enough, however, and sooner or later their people are going to be knocking on your door. now that "daddy's home", i want an explanation and a good one for this supposed classification and i want it NOW.

[Mainard]

Hello,

Please read the post HERE if you believe there is a false positive. We will then take a look into this.

Thank you very much!

[Comprev]

Hello adwareaway

Before you start yelling at us, you might want to see VirusTotal's report on your program. The venerable malware fighter Xylitol has denounced this program as malware.

Do not promote your software on our forum. Someone tried to do that with BulletProofSoftware the other day.

Comprev

[adwareaway]

Hello adwareaway

Before you start yelling at us, you might want to see VirusTotal's report on your program. The venerable malware fighter Xylitol has denounced this program as malware.

Do not promote your software on our forum. Someone tried to do that with BulletProofSoftware the other day.

Comprev

not promoting anything. did i tell people to come over or did i drop a link? nice try, son. is it too much to ask to be able to do business quietly without people interfering. that site doesn't say a thing except for a vague 1 of 42 score and that is something to do with comodo labeling adwareaway as malware.

who is xylitol? you act as if everyone has heard of him or something.

[adwareaway]

if you are going to call 90% of the other spyware scanners on the market "rogue", that is all well and good, but if 10-15% of those 90% are not rogues, then you are singling out perfectly good companies for nothing.

if i read the link right, comodo believes adwareaway to be a virus but what if they've got a false positive? everybody gets those.

when you sell only 2 licenses in the last 40 days and have asked your affiliates by email to start going door to door or making cold calls to sell adwareaway, then you are effectively messing with our living by making up rogue statuses about anyone and everyone just to eliminate products other than yours and companies who you are friendly with.

i could go on virustotal, siteadvisor or any site in the world and spread fiction about companies i don't regularly deal with but i don't. user contributed? come on. how about something a little more professional. other than a false positive or two (in earlier versions) that might have deleted a key file here and there, years ago, adwareaway has never installed any malware, viruses or the like.

get the product off the list, i'm not kidding anymore.

[Mainard]

Hello,

If you feel MBAM is flagging your software as a false positive please follow the directions made with my first post HERE. We will then investigate this matter further and get it resolved in a timely manner.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask.

Thank you!

[adwareaway]

Hello,

If you feel MBAM is flagging your software as a false positive please follow the directions made with my first post HERE. We will then investigate this matter further and get it resolved in a timely manner.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask.

Thank you!

yes i read it. dammit i don't know how to do any of that because i'm not technical, i'm in administration. it isn't freaking 2004 and even if it were we were never on the howes' rogue list to begin with. we're legitimate. just because we sell a license (lifetime by the way) for $30 a pop doesn't make us a rogue. we inform people of that on our site and inform them of that before they download or run a scan.

don't know why you people act shocked or alarmed that a company might actually show up and speak up about things if you call them a rogue. would you sit on the couch doing nothing drowning yourself in red bull and doritos if i were running a web site calling a rogue for the whole world to see? i doubt it, right?

[bob30880]

Are you going to target these sites next?

http://www.2-viruses.com/adware-away "Adwareaway is a rogue anti-spyware program

[nosirrah]

I gave your software a go on a clean default XP install with nothing more than updates installed and right away I see critical issues:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PCIDump : Driver : rootkit.pcidump : No Action Taken

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PDCOMP : Driver : rootkit.pdcomp : No Action Taken

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PDFRAME : Driver : rootkit.pdframe : No Action Taken

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PDRELI : Driver : rootkit.pdreli : No Action Taken

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PDRFRAME : Driver : rootkit.pdrframe : No Action Taken

These are default empty keys that XP sets up when installing from CD and likely for most (if not all) OEM installs as well. The way things are set up now you are detecting FPs on all default XP installs and requiring $ to fix them. I cannot delist this application until this issue has been resolved.

[Mainard]

Hello,

Until you provide the information we require, we take false positives very seriously and have them rectified the moment we confirm. Other than that I can offer no more further assistance. I recommend sending my instructions to your technical team to have this issue worked out.

Thank you very much!

[shadowwar]

Also installed on an XP system.

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PCIDump : Driver : rootkit.pcidump : No Action Taken (Same as nosirrah)
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PDCOMP : Driver : rootkit.pdcomp : No Action Taken (Same as nosirrah)
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PDFRAME : Driver : rootkit.pdframe : No Action Taken (Same as nosirrah)
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PDRELI : Driver : rootkit.pdreli : No Action Taken (Same as nosirrah)
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PDRFRAME : Driver : rootkit.pdrframe : No Action Taken (Same as nosirrah)
HKCR\CLSID:{9CEE304E-DC6C-11D2-B561-00A0C92E6848} : Registry Key : IE Hijacker : No Action Taken  (Valid Intel graphics driver)

All false positives that you are charging money to remove. Our classification normally of rogue software is multiple false positives and charging money to remove.

[adwareaway]

Are you going to target these sites next?

http://www.2-viruses.com/adware-away "Adwareaway is a rogue anti-spyware program

[adwareaway]

i've looked at the last few replies regarding the scan results of our product. i apologize. looks like i've been asleep at the wheel and should have invested more time into paying attention to what our technical team was doing.

thank you for the wake up call. i'm not going to be back here until some big changes are made. i can tell you this though. i am going to get my team into one room and some heads are going to roll. along with some cars out of the parking lot because i am in a firing mood.

[shadowwar]

Thanks for acknowledging. Once this is resolved please feel free to contact us to reevaluate.

Also The staff banners below in signature are the only replies that represent company views.

[adwareaway]

Thanks for acknowledging. Once this is resolved please feel free to contact us to reevaluate.

Also The staff banners below in signature are the only replies that represent company views.

thanks again. the results you showed me were eye opening. like a punch in the gut. god only knows what i've deleted from my own system over the past couple of years i've had these clowns on board.

i have a feeling a reevaluation may take awhile. back to the drawing board to rebuild from the ground up.

any volunteers? lol. (yeah i know its a longshot)

[shadowwar]

One other thing to bring to your attention. Your latest definitions show

Definition Date:

2011.04.03

That's been over a month since last update? Your website states they are updated daily?

My intention is just to make you aware.

Cheers.

[adwareaway]

One other thing to bring to your attention. Your latest definitions show

Definition Date:

2011.04.03

That's been over a month since last update? Your website states they are updated daily?

My intention is just to make you aware.

Cheers.

when it rains it pours.

updates should be daily but at this point i'm not sure what sort of production i'm getting out of my so-called team. after the false positives you showed me, hard telling what the adwareaway techs are doing when they are "working."

though the front page of the web site is updated about once every 3-4 weeks, usually if we reword the privacy policy or something like that at the same time. the april 3rd just means nobody has updated the front page or at least that part of it anytime recently. but we have had numerous product updates since then. so i've been told. updates are meant to be daily.

my head is spinning right about now and this explains 2 units sold in the past 40 days. definitely.

[shadowwar]

Well i hate to rain on your parade but the app says no updates are available and Library date is the same as your website. 2011.04.03

Please let us know when the issues are worked out.

Good luck!

[adwareaway]

Well i hate to rain on your parade but the app says no updates are available and Library date is the same as your website. 2011.04.03

Please let us know when the issues are worked out.

Good luck!

oh my lord, i think i am going to be sick. i'm glad i was sitting down for this.

i'm a businessman, so i know that in this industry it is all about surrounding yourself with "good" people. i've failed miserably.

thank you for the reality check. its going to be a long year. at least things will look up once i get some parasites off of our staff.

[adwareaway]

to put this trainwreck i've started into perspective, yeah we have sold about 2 units in the past 40 days. when i raised very reasonable questions recently as to what the problem was and why we weren't selling more licenses, i was essentially told, "its that f**king malwarebytes and all those other companies who are calling us a rogue and have us in their database." our only revenue stream was from units sold, we don't ask for or receive donations.

eventually i wound up here, since there are those recent threads.

those of you with some business acumen probably know how long it takes negative things to trickle all the way to the top even at a small company. this is that theory in action.

while i am sorry to have embarrassed myself and my firm so publicly that it has me considering a name change, i am thankful to have finally learned the truth and the facts behind what i've been blind to after assuming my people were getting the job done behind the scenes. instead i've just learned i'm being fleeced by a bunch of incompetent contractors.

[mountaintree16]

I just have a quick question for you, adwareaway.

On your website it states:

Adware Away is the only product that doesn't provide a free trial version in anti-malware industry.

source: http://www.adwareaway.com/download.html

Does this mean that one has to purchase the product in order to remove found items? If not, what does it mean, could you please clarify?

I am just wondering because, in my opinion, it doesn't seem like a good practice, to allow a free download and scan, but then have to pay to have the items that are found removed. I certainly wouldn't want to pay using an infected machine to remove the items that were found, I'd rather purchase the program after my machine has been cleaned. By using an infected machine to purchase the program, one could potentially open themselves up to credit card theft.

Thank you

[adwareaway]

I just have a quick question for you, adwareaway.

On your website it states:

source: http://www.adwareaway.com/download.html

Does this mean that one has to purchase the product in order to remove found items? If not, what does it mean, could you please clarify?

I am just wondering because, in my opinion, it doesn't seem like a good practice, to allow a free download and scan, but then have to pay to have the items that are found removed. I certainly wouldn't want to pay using an infected machine to remove the items that were found, I'd rather purchase the program after my machine has been cleaned. By using an infected machine to purchase the program, one could potentially open themselves up to credit card theft.

Thank you

yes that's about the size of it. the end user can either buy a lifetime license for the product for $29.95, which comes with one year of one-on-one tech support to help with stuff the product doesn't find.

what the consumer essentially buys is a license/activation key, so they could theoretically make a purchase from an uninfected machine since they are just getting a number/s to activate their product. but you raise a valid point.

as for what you quoted:

"Adware Away is the only product that doesn't provide a free trial version in anti-malware industry."

it just affirms we have no 5, 7, 15 or 30 day trials like the other guys. we are scan only with activation required for removal, but then again we encourage the user to buy first since we allow downloads mostly to let the user decide if they like the set-up and interface of adwareaway.

keep this in mind, though, unlike many competitors we don't charge year to year. no $30-40 per year which has to be renewed every 12 months. we have a lifetime license.

otherwise i stand by what i said above that some changes need to be made. thanks for asking.

[mountaintree16]

@adwareaway,

Thank you very much for the clarification on this.

As long as the user knows up front that they must purchase the product - prior to downloading it - in order to be able to remove any found items, I don't see a big problem with that. This fact is made clear on your website, which is very good.

I know that someone could use another machine other than their own to purchase a license, and in a pinch that is an alternative to purchasing it on your own infected machine. At least for me personally though, I would not feel comfortable using a friend's computer or especially a public machine to purchase something with my credit card, you never know what could possibly be lurking on it.

I have read the rest of this thread and I am glad that you were finally made aware of what was going on and are going to be making changes. That is awesome.

I also would just like to say that I am not employed by Malwarebytes or anything, but just a concerned forum member, in case you were wondering