Alex Eckelberry's dashboard

Alex Eckelberry replied on May 03, 2009 02:25 to the question "Sunbelt foiled by LeakTest.exe" in Sunbelt Software:

We'll take look. Did you have the outbound firewall enabled?

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 28, 2009 13:19 to the problem "VIPRE ineffective at removing malware" in Sunbelt Software:

Brett -- you can always submit these files to response@sunbeltsoftware.com for an analysis. Simply put them in a zip file, password-protected, and they will be rapidly analyzed.

You can also submit them to VIrustotal.com to see if othes are detecting it.

Realize that false positives are rampant with all malware solutions, so it's impossible to tell what exactly is happening until we see the file(s).

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 28, 2009 13:15 to the question "PC Recue Program Unavalible For Download" in Sunbelt Software:

Yes, we had a curroption problem with the file that was posted. We expect a new version up shortly!

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 27, 2009 19:29 to the question "Trojans" in Sunbelt Software:

Dynamic Desktop Media is a low-risk program that hasn't been in distribution for several years. We have it in our definitions, so I can only assume it's a false positive on the part of Advanced Spyware Remover.

As regards kill.av.c, the location of that file is in the winsxs directory, making the chance that this is a false positive fairly high.

Unless we can actually get the files, we really can't answer the question.

One thing you could do is upload the files that were found to be "malware" to a reputable site like virustotal.com. If the major companies like Kaspersky, Symantec, McAfee or Trend Micro flag it, then you can reliably believe that it's likely malware. Otherwise, these days, there are so many false positives in so many programs, it's impossible to tell what's really going on.

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 27, 2009 19:01 to the question "Trojans" in Sunbelt Software:

What trojan? What other spyware program? It could easily be a false positive. More information is helpful.

A comment on the problem "VIPRE ineffective at removing malware" in Sunbelt Software:

What did Windows Defender pick up that VIPRE didn't? – Alex Eckelberry, on April 27, 2009 13:17

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 27, 2009 10:39 to the question "Please refund my purchase price for the Firewall product." in Sunbelt Software:

We're happy to issue a refund, but keep in mind that firewalls need to often be configured for each application that calls out to the internet. This is generally a configuration issue that can be worked with through our technical support department.

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 27, 2009 10:24 to the problem "VIPRE ineffective at removing malware" in Sunbelt Software:

If VIPRE detects a piece of malware, then it won't come up on the scan results page, because it's already detected and blocked it.

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 19, 2009 10:21 to the question "Is Vipre removing Microsoft's own services.exe from system32 folder?" in Sunbelt Software:

No, this is not a false positive, we don't remove services.exe -- that would be a bad thing. However, check the Active Protection settings -- are they set to High? If so, they should be set to Low. These monitors should only be used carefully, and are only for the very educated user.

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 08, 2009 20:27 to the question "VIPRE gets thumbs down" in Sunbelt Software:

Thanks Robin. Rest assured we take our job of protecting our customers very seriously ;-)

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 08, 2009 20:08 to the question "VIPRE gets thumbs down" in Sunbelt Software:

No, they tested the product in the middle of the 5000 series update.

When we notified them of this, they revised the review. You can see it here:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/security/revie...

It was still done on a version that was not complete in its update to the 5000 series of definitions, but due to publication deadlines, they couldn't wait the extra few days to run the test again. If they had waited just another couple of days, I think you would have seen even better results.

Nevertheless, it's not a bad review at all.

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 07, 2009 20:11 to the question "Why Vipre's definition files are so huge?" in Sunbelt Software:

The size is being reduced dramatically in a mid-May release. We are re-architecting the database structure.

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 07, 2009 19:06 to the question "Why Vipre's definition files are so huge?" in Sunbelt Software:

The initial download is large, but subsequent updates should not be more than a few hundred k

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 06, 2009 23:34 to the question "Security Suite?" in Sunbelt Software:

No, I'd say coming out with a security suite is not the #1 priority.

A high priority is to make a great product, that doesn't bloat your system, steal resources and turn your computer into a brick.

Another high priority is to have high detections and removal of malware. With over 20 million pieces of malware to deal with, and tens of thousands of new variants being released daily, it's not a trivial task.

And frankly, these two priorities are a lot more important to me than coming out with a security suite. If it was, I'd be like many other security companies -- rushing a suite to market just to make money.

Right now, VIPRE supports 64 bit platforms -- I run it myself on my 64-bit Vista system.

There's a lot of work in making a good security product. We're working hard on a suite and will release it when it's ready. Not sooner.

Alex Eckelberry
CEO

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 04, 2009 21:40 to the question "What's with the Deep Scan Problems?" in Sunbelt Software:

The scan time issue should be fixed now, even with "Scan Archives" enabled. It was fixed in a definition update in the past day or so.

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 03, 2009 02:20 to the question "Does Vipre attempt to clean virus?" in Sunbelt Software:

Incidentally, what you're talking about is the fact that in many cases, we will default to a "quarantine" instead of a "Delete". This is in case there is a false positive.

Once a file is quarantined, it's no longer a threat to a system.

Deleting/quarantining a file is different than disinfecting a virus-infected file, where you are removing the virus code from the file, but leaving the rest of the file intact.

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 03, 2009 02:02 to the question "Does Vipre attempt to clean virus?" in Sunbelt Software:

Of course. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to get West Coast Labs certification for antivirus.

http://www.westcoastlabs.com/search/p...

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 02, 2009 10:38 to the question "Can't download SSClean.zip" in Sunbelt Software:

We'll get that fixed asap

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 02, 2009 10:34 to the question "Security Suite?" in Sunbelt Software:

We're working on it, it will be VIPRE 4 and ship in several months.

Alex Eckelberry replied on April 02, 2009 10:31 to the problem "Where is Vipre 3.1 Beta 6 update?" in Sunbelt Software:

You can ignore this. This is an incorrct entry in Windows Error Reporting. We will contact Microsoft and get it fixed.