Windows 7. Avast! free Antivirus 7.0.1456
Early this am I went to a European sports website.
Suddenly I got a popup in my system tray saying that avast! is analyzing something.
It then says it is suspicious but not enough to end it, or something to that effect.
It then gives me the choice "Execute" or "Close".
I assume that "Close" means close the file/program it's analyzing - I hadn't given permission for anything to "Execute" if that means install.
I certainly didn't want "Execute" so I chose the only other choice - "Close"
I thought that would close the program, but didn't get a message saying that.
The message from avast about the analyzing didn't give me a clue as to what program it was referring to, what website I had open that had downloaded it (I had many tabs open), etc.
Then the avast message closes, and it appeared then to me that "Close" merely meant "Close the avast info popup", not Close the program trying to install which I hadn't given permission for nor expected nor wanted.
Avast never asked if I wanted to keep the file or not that was trying to execute.
I'm trying to decide what to do, and the program installs. It's scareware that takes over the computer, and I have to shut down, go into Safe Mode, system restore, and then use the fix in this thread that a reader suggests:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-hardware/catalyst-control-centre-host-application-has/0a0ef1b0-117d-43d8-a43f-9b24228b660b?page=1.
So avast let me down completely.
This is very disappointing. It took me all hours and hours to fix and I was up thru the night and early am getting my computer back in shape. And I lost several files I was creating that I'd spent hours of research on.
Why doesn't avast ask if I want it to delete the suspicious program? Or vault it? Or any choice other than leaving it there.
Extremely poor performance and (lack of) execution.
I'd be glad to let you examine any files or records avast kept of this if you let me know how to get them to you.
A few minutes ago, I got the same avast message - that it's analyzing a program. At the end, a similar message like "Suspicious but not enough to not let it continue".
So this time I immediately closed out of a few websites I was visiting (researching Evo apps).
But again, no message from avast letting me know where the suspicious program/file has come from, what it's called, do I want it to be put in the vault, etc. Nothing.