Can a program download/install w/o your persmissions!!

[flyer351]

Anybody ever had a program self download and install without your permission?
I started my computer yesterday and had this annoying little guy pop on my screen and tell me that he can warn me of prob's on my computer before they happen. The program then began to update itself automatically.

I shut it down and restarted the computer. BAM!, blue screen of death. Safe mode, msconfig, disable and now the computer will start but the annoying program is still there lurking.

The program is called Attune from a company called Aveo.

Could this be because of Road Runner and cable? I don't have a firewall. Could be a good time to get one.

 

[Cyph3r]

Unfortunately, more and more these days companies are begin to get into a false delusion that they know what people want, but they deem us too dumb to actually find it and use it. As such, more and more software that gets accessed on the Web usually has some sort of a autoinstallation process.

In many cases, it may not be that they installed themselves without your permission, it's usually that when a dialog box came up for something, you said YES without reading it or understanding it entirely. One of those dialog boxes could have installed this software.

See if you can remove it from the "Add/Remove Programs" option from the Control Panel.

The other thing I would suggest is to set your browser to download files from the internet when you left-click on it, as opposed to running it directly. Regards

 

[Danlz]

If you can't find him in add/remove then you'll have to excorcise the little demon in the registry. Find and delete "Attune"and "Aveo".

 

[Dan]

There is also a lot of "spyware" around that you can inadvertantly pick up while surfing the Net. I'd suggest you download Ad-Aware 4.0 and run it. It's a small freeware program that detects and eliminates "spyware."

 

[Brian23]

One time Address.com installed a program called "DoDots" on my PC with out my permission. I have no clue what it was, but I uninstalled it as soon as I discovered it.

 

[demenion]

Thanks for the link, Dan. turned out i had one trace of spyware