mo832 Posted June 11, 2019 Posted June 11, 2019 I think I found the problem!! The first thing I did when the problem started was to go to about:config and look for anything related to "smoothing". Whatever was there did not fix anything, so I moved on to other areas. Today, I had the impulse to go back and scour about:config line by line to see if anything would look to be related. I searched on "font" and see a bunch of lines related to gfx.* , I played with a bunch of them, toggled, changed values, etc., and when I found the one called gfx.font_rendering.cleartype.always_use_for_content; it was set to default(false). I set it to true and Boom!! Now... I think I would have remembered if I had done this myself, even accidentally. There is almost zero chance it was changed by me. How weird would it be to assume that Panda changed this? 1
Dave-H Posted June 11, 2019 Posted June 11, 2019 (edited) 9 minutes ago, mo832 said: I think I found the problem!! The first thing I did when the problem started was to go to about:config and look for anything related to "smoothing". Whatever was there did not fix anything, so I moved on to other areas. Today, I had the impulse to go back and scour about:config line by line to see if anything would look to be related. I searched on "font" and see a bunch of lines related to gfx.* , I played with a bunch of them, toggled, changed values, etc., and when I found the one called gfx.font_rendering.cleartype.always_use_for_content; it was set to default(false). I set it to true and Boom!! Now... I think I would have remembered if I had done this myself, even accidentally. There is almost zero chance it was changed by me. How weird would it be to assume that Panda changed this? Well I'm glad you found a fix! I would actually be very surprised if Panda would have changed that setting, but I can't imagine what else could have done it either. Edited June 11, 2019 by Dave-H Quote added as post has appeared on a new page
Mathwiz Posted June 12, 2019 Posted June 12, 2019 Most likely, gfx.font_rendering.cleartype.always_use_for_content was always set to false. That is the default value when FF is installed. Whatever Panda did to Firefox's font rendering, evidently setting that pref to true bypassed or overrode it somehow. So thankfully, you're back to normal now, but we may never know just exactly what happened. 1
Queroexperimentar Posted June 12, 2019 Posted June 12, 2019 13 hours ago, dencorso said: Why don't you just redeploy your backup from just before installing Panda and try again from scratch? Read this (esp. the 1st Q of the included FAQ): https://blog.malwarebytes.com/malwarebytes-news/2016/12/announcing-malwarebytes-3-0-a-next-generation-antivirus-replacement/ So, i think it does replace MSE. One part says "Which Operating Systems does Malwarebytes 3.0 work under? We continue to support all versions from Windows XP to Windows 10. Our Anti-Ransomware technology is only enabled on Windows 7 and higher." Is it valid to the latest version of Malwarebytes? Because i have installed Malwarebytes 3.5.1 as i saw somewere, that this is the latest version compatible with windows XP.
Dave-H Posted June 12, 2019 Posted June 12, 2019 Yes it is. It should continue to receive definition updates for the foreseeable future though.
mo832 Posted June 12, 2019 Posted June 12, 2019 I have an "elementary" question but would like some thoughts from you folks because I haven't ever gotten the concept... What is the difference between malware/ransomware/virus/worm? What is are the requirements to be considered anti-malware or anti-virus? Why do we make a distinction, why do we care what it's called, shouldn't we just protect against any "unwanted bad stuff"?
dencorso Posted June 12, 2019 Posted June 12, 2019 In short: malware is any "unwanted bad stuff";virus is a type of "unwanted bad stuff" that reproduces itself, without outside help;ransomware is a type of "unwanted bad stuff" which encrypts one's files (usually just .doc(x)/,xls(x)/.pdf/.jp(e)g) and asks for money to restore (?) them; There're much more, trojans/worms/internet bombs/etc.
mo832 Posted June 12, 2019 Posted June 12, 2019 Ok, so why do people correct each other when you say "I got a virus", and they say "actually, it's a worm". Who cares? Get rid of it! What is a "true antivirus" software?
dencorso Posted June 12, 2019 Posted June 12, 2019 One that only catches viruses... I doubt any exist anymore. However, traditional AVs are, nowadays, signature-based antimalwares, with some heuristics (not always very good) on top of it. Malwarebytes, OTOH, says it uses their own methods (not clearly disclosed) which appear to be very good heuristics and just a little pinch of signature-based as a seasoning. It just works, though. 2
mo832 Posted June 12, 2019 Posted June 12, 2019 On one of my xp machines, I still have malwarebytes v1.65 installed from years ago. The last time I ran it was 2016. A few days ago, I opened it and it prompted me to update the signatures, which I did, and then I ran a full scan overnight. Is this old version, with new signatures, acceptable to run in 2019? Would it still be relatively effective?
dencorso Posted June 12, 2019 Posted June 12, 2019 On 6/4/2019 at 8:18 PM, Jody Thornton said: [...] I've removed MSE, and just opted for Malwarebytes v1.75 (with current definitions) Sure. But maybe you can update to v. 1.75 and it'll still recognize your license as valid. However, do a full system backup befor messing with AVs. Just to keep on the safe side.
Mathwiz Posted June 12, 2019 Posted June 12, 2019 I have Malware-bytes Anti-malware free v1.75. It's a good on-demand scanner. Its big weakness is that it doesn't do real-time scanning; i.e., it doesn't automatically scan anything you download or copy/load from a USB drive. You have to remember to do those things yourself, or else upgrade to the paid version. BTW, Avast hit its first false positive today, with SwiftSearch. I had downloaded the "combined" 32-/64-bit version but it looked like malware to Avast. So I downloaded the "pure" 32-bit version (which is smaller anyway). It works fine without Avast panicking.
CRK Posted June 14, 2019 Posted June 14, 2019 never thought KAV Free Antivirus was going to work in XP, saw in other forum recomendation to install on XP Sp3, downloaded and installed version 19.0 it's working fantastic so far.. :-) 3
Ben Markson Posted June 14, 2019 Posted June 14, 2019 (edited) For anyone still struggling to bite the bullet by installing a replacement to MSE (so far I'm finding them all downright scary if not outright destructive and it is just reminding me why I switched to MSE in the first place) these MSE registry changes seem to do two things. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\Signature Updates] "ASSignatureDue"=dword:0000016d "AVSignatureDue"=dword:0000016d ...where 16d = 365 days They stop the 2001 Event ID errors for Microsoft Antimalware, plus - and this did surprise me - my MSE has turned from orange back to green. This is deceptively comforting as it is obviously purely cosmetic. Even so MSE is not entirely useless as it is still doing its job even as the signature files become increasingly out of date. I'm guessing this gives 365 days before MSE thinks the 1.293.2807.0 definitions are too old. I'm also guessing the value could be increased even further. Ben. Edited June 14, 2019 by Ben Markson Typos! 4
CRK Posted June 14, 2019 Posted June 14, 2019 4 hours ago, Ben Markson said: For anyone still still snuggling to bite the bullet by installing a replacement to MSE (so far I'm finding them all downright scary if not outright destructive and it is just reminding me why I switched to MSE in the first place) these MSE registry changes seem to do two things. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\Signature Updates] "ASSignatureDue"=dword:0000016d "AVSignatureDue"=dword:0000016d ...where 16d = 365 days They stop the 2001 Event ID errors for Microsoft Antimalware, plus - and this did surprise me - my MSE has turned from orange back to green. This is deceptively comforting as it is obviously purely cosmetic. Even so MSE is not entirely useless as it is still doing its job even as the signature files become increasingly out of date. I'm guessing this gives 365 days before MSE thinks the 1.293.2807.0 definitions are too old. I'm also guessing the value could be increased even further. Ben. forget about MSE since you can't update it so it's useless, what's the point for keeping it?? 1
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