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Hitman Pro (Free) vs Applian FLV Player
Long story short...
I did my weekly scan with Hitman Pro Free. It came up with a half dozen tracking cookies and and 612 malware remnants (that it searches for at the end of the scan) Most of these had the word "Applian" or variations on the spelling. A couple more attempts and this number went down to 30.
Now I have had these FLV video clips on this computer for a long time now, and HM Pro never had a problem with them before. Wanting to get the problem fixed, emotion took over from logic and I ran AdwCleaner. It found 5 registry items which I proceeded to delete. Bad idea. The clips are still there and play with RealPlayer. So I apparently removed some important files FLV Player needed to work
A System Restore came next, but it didn't work for some reason, so I undid it. At this point, I went to take a nice brisk walk in the warm sunshine that has been scarce around here. There is no sign of Applian FLV Player in Programs and Features, so somewhere in this misguided adventure the program got deleted, although the shortcut remains on the Desktop.
Would a reinstall solve this problem? I assume the FLV program would download all the files it needs and delete those it doesn't. As always, thanks for your help and advice,
joe53
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June 14th, 2015 17:00
Hi Dale:
I must say I don't worry much about "remnants" or traces that HMPro finds, and seldom delete them. AFAIK, they are not indications of active infection. Were I to delete any such remnants or registry entries with any of my on-demand scanners, I would create a restore point first.
The Applian FLV Player seems to be legit, but I note that it might bundle other software such as the "Freecorder Toolbar, a free audio recorder that works right within your browser." Perhaps this is what HMP/ADWCleaner detected.
I'm not familiar with the Applian FLV Player, but you should be able to download it from the vendor's website
here: http://flv-player.us/ and re-install it safely (WOT gives this site a green flag).
RoHe
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June 14th, 2015 20:00
While Applian FLV player may be safe, be very careful about downloading and installing it. Last time I downloaded it from their site (after a clean OS install), a ton of ad-ware, junkware, toolbars, tracking cookies, and maybe even some spyware. came along for the ride.
The download is sneaky because you think you're only getting FLV Player by clicking Next, so read each screen carefully before clicking anything. In reality, I think you probably want to click NO for everything until the very end to avoid the junk.
Right after installing it, Malwarebytes and SAS found all kinds of unwanted stuff on my PC that wasn't there before the download..
Caveat Emptor, even if it is free... :emotion-5:
joe53
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June 15th, 2015 01:00
Good catch Ron! I retract my previous opinion completely.
After backing up an image of my system (my regular Sunday maintenance) I figured it was safe to try to install flvplayer, to see what was being currently offered/bundled.
None of my security objected to downloading the installer from the vendor's site, but as soon as I tried to run the installer, MBAM Premium blocked flvplayer.exe as a PUP, and quarantined it. I restored flvplayer.exe from quarantine, and disabled MBAM's real-time protection to see why it objected.
What it objected to was bundled software disguised as "Terms of Service", rather than as pre-checked options, so I can see how folks might click on through the next 4 pages, accepting:
"Wordinator" (ad supported software)
"WordAnchor" (more ads).
"Super Optimizer" (which looks like a registry cleaner)
"Norton 360" AV.
When I declined these deviously disguised bundles my Panda AV Free still blocked and quarantined the setup.exe as a trojan. At which point I cancelled the install. When I re-activated MBAM, it asked to delete flvplayer.exe, then asked for a restart to complete the removal process.
I would advise all to consider flvplayer as malware, and give it wide berth.
dalem29
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June 15th, 2015 06:00
Wow!
Really weird, since it worked so well for so long and multiple scans over several years never found any problems. The thing is, I don't remember downloading this application in the past. Almost all these clips came off of You Tube which uses this format.
They play in Real Player, which requires a right click on the file icon and choosing Real Player. Is there another player that would work with these clips, and/or is there a simple conversion process that would make it easier to play them...just clicking on the icon. Thanks for the warning about FLV.
RoHe
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June 15th, 2015 11:00
So much for the green flag from WOT! Maybe you should report it...?
You can always change the default player that Windows uses for .flv files from FLV Player to Real Player. In Win 7, for example, search for: associate
There are a few other free .flv players out there, but I don't know how much junk comes along with them. And there are some free apps that can convert .flv to .avi, etc, but you have to watch out for junk that may come with them too.
RoHe
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June 15th, 2015 11:00
And one more thingy...
FLV Player will add itself to your right-click context menus without permission so it seems to want to take over everywhere.
At least you can use ccleaner to get it (and any other unwelcome items) off the context menus.
Who says this stuff is "free"?
joe53
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June 18th, 2015 17:00
I still stand by WOT, although it is only as good as user input. And if that website only recently resorted to these obnoxious tactics, it might well take WOT a while to get up to speed, until users realised (like Dale) that they had been compromised.
In fact, when I just now visited that website, I see it had already been downgraded to an orange warning, with a handful of comments on its unsavory tactics. I added my negative rating and comments.
RoHe
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June 18th, 2015 18:00
I downloaded FLV Player from that site a year ago (Apr-2014) when I did a clean install to upgrade from XP to Win 7, and I got all that unwanted junk way back then.
So it's odd that WOT suddenly went from green to orange. But who knows, maybe they read this thread. :emotion-4:
joe53
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June 19th, 2015 00:00
Curious ...
WOT has only 5 user ratings for this website (including mine), all negative. The 4 other negative rating/comments were posted between 2011 and 2013. And yet both my Firefox and Opera (latest) browsers (with the WOT add-on) still give this website a green flag.
One wonders how many negative ratings WOT requires to red-flag a website. Presumably more than 5 ...