Weird Norton Scan

[MarkCorrigan]

I was sat here, doing precisely nothing with three tabs open in firefox, two JREF forum threads and one youtube page, skype open and no other internet programs. Suddenly, a very professional and genuine looking program appears telling me it's preparing to install an upgrade to my Norton anti-viral programs.

I'm pretty sure I don't have any, and it finishes before I can close it in time, opening instead a window telling me I only have a free version of a Norton viral scanner, and that I can buy the full version from them. It uses actual Norton and Symantec logos and it appears genuine, but as I said, I don't think I have any. On the other hand, I hadn't DONE anything to warrant a pop-up ad or virus appearing on my computer, as the last thing I did was to accept azip file of powerpoint slideshows from my girlfriend which I know to be safe.

What the hell gives?

[Dancing David]

Sounds like really sneaky rouge malware

[CORed]

Is your computer new? Many computers from DELL, HP, etc. come with a limited time free version on Norton (or McAfee) installed, and will prompt you to purchase the full version when the free version expires (usually two or three months after you buy the computer).

While this could be some kind of malware, the "expired trial" seems more likely. If you've had your computer more than a few months and never installed Norton, malware seems more likely.

ETA: If you do have a pre-installed Norton trial version installed, it should show up in your "Add/Remove" programs list.

[Soapy Sam]

What CORed said sounds like it to me.
Just have a look in All Programs.

If you definitely do not have Norton (Symantec) on board, please report back.

[Dragoonster]

Pre-installed trial Norton IS malware as far as I'm concerned. Those little pop-ups to notify of renewal need are impossible to stop without deleting the whole of Norton, they have no warning and can boot you out of running programs. And I can't remember but I don't think add/remove from Windows eliminates it either, at least not on my old computer.

[Soapy Sam]

Did on mine (An HP9090).
Interestingly, I found if I reinstalled Windows using the recovery partition, Norton was reinstalled with another free 30 days. I suppose I could have free AV in perpetuity if I was truly desperate...

[GreenLines]

Press ctrl+alt+delete, start up task manager, under the "Processes" tab look for anything saying Norton. "End Process" them until they go away.

If you're in XP open the run command and type in "msconfig", if you're Vista or Win7 do a search for it. Under the start-up tab look for anything that you can't readily identify, or if you see Norton uncheck it so it doesn't start when the system does. Then go into the services tab, ignore anything from Microsoft, and turn off anything that looks out of place. To finish things up go to all programs and look in the "Startup" folder to see if it's got anything that you don't want starting up when the system does.

The above is good for housecleaning the software environment on your computer, as well.

[Dancing David]

Pre-installed trial Norton IS malware as far as I'm concerned. Those little pop-ups to notify of renewal need are impossible to stop without deleting the whole of Norton, they have no warning and can boot you out of running programs. And I can't remember but I don't think add/remove from Windows eliminates it either, at least not on my old computer.

As always, I am suprised by the variety of opinions on the forum.

I disagree that it is malware. It may be unwanted software which can be annoying but I am not sure it is malware.

Now at work the only time I ever encountered a problem with Norton, it was used by the school district many moons ago, is that on some machines it does not uninstall all the way. It leaves a remenant in the Add/Remove programs, even after it is uninstalled. But it is not active, it does not throw out pop up or anything like that.

I have encountered many problems uninstalling Panda which is the current software, usually on corrupt machines, where some critical file can not be deleted. Then you can not reinstall because this critical file is still there. And so on, then we end up having to help the user back up their files (they know they are supposed to but they rarely do) and then just drop a new image on it.