FileZilla = Adware in Installer

The Mighty Gerbil

Tribe of Judah TF 2 Chapter Leader & CGA Admin
Staff member
FileZilla told me it needed updating today and that the auto-update feature was broken in the version I had. As such I took the opportunity to uninstall/re-install it to a different hard drive in the process and, as I've used it for years with no problems, didn't look for another link when it directed me to use the SF (sourceforge) installer...

Astromenda adware/browser hijacker fun time.

...I unchecked the only box choice there was, for a Astromenda browser install, so there is no option to avoid it. DO NOT use the installer. Again I don't normally use installers but after years using Filezilla I trusted them, that trust was misplaced. There is an .exe download and a .zip option on their site which are likely safe but FileZilla doesn't direct you to these. I am now wondering what good, free, FTPs alternatives are out there.

After removing the junk I am currently scanning with Avast and downloading Malwarebytes to be certain. I'm not going to trust my computer for weeks now, fun, not. FileZilla thread talking about this, now closed, amazed it wasn't deleted -_- .
 
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Thanks for the heads up. Having just reformatted my HDD's, filezilla was on the list of things to get again.. =/
 
Same story with ImgBurn, though I think it's different malware packed in.

:(
 
Dang. Something similar actually happened with a coworker of mine and I at work. We downloaded something from CNET (supposed to be ok right?! WRONG!!!). This item has this malware attached to it so that we had to actually look at the registry in order to delete it. We were none to pleased.
 
I use Revo Uninstaller to get rid of unwanted programs. It will get rid of some deeply imbedded programs. If there are still problems I will sic bitdefender on the remnants in a boot time run.
 
I use Revo Uninstaller to get rid of unwanted programs. It will get rid of some deeply imbedded programs. If there are still problems I will sic bitdefender on the remnants in a boot time run.

Thanks Ursen I might look into one of those to double check :).

I think the adware it installed is of the variety that you can actually remove. It seemed to fall under the definition of "potentially unwanted program" or "pup" as opposed to rootkits, malware, viruses, Trojans, and worms which are much more malicious and evasive. Multiple removal instructions on the net said you could manually uninstall the programs, remove the browser extensions, reset your browsers and basically be done. Avast found nothing scanning afterwards. I went the extra step of downloading Malwarebytes and it found what appeared to be vestigial registry entries but no files. There is an .ico file somewhere for a web shortcut it put on my desktop and I deleted but I'm not that concerned about it. I'm not sure where it would be though as it referenced the default windows location for icons and didn't display that one, weird.

It's really, really rare that anything gets on my computer. It's not that I have great security I just I'm super selective about what I will trust to install on my computer. If anyone else would like to tout their, free, security programs I am curious as to if there is a consensus on which are good ones.
 
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