Comments on: Potentially Unwanted Programs slow down your system and can be harmful: Here’s what can you do about it https://www.emsisoft.com/en/blog/22497/potentially-unwanted-programs-pups-what-you-need-to-know/ Straight-talking security advice from the Malware Experts Fri, 02 Dec 2022 14:37:21 +0000 hourly 1 By: How to Perform Manual PUP Removal | Emsisoft | Security Blog https://www.emsisoft.com/en/blog/22497/potentially-unwanted-programs-pups-what-you-need-to-know/#comment-789859 Mon, 18 Jun 2018 11:37:13 +0000 http://blog.emsisoft.com/?p=22497#comment-789859 […] In this article, we want to take a closer look at one category of malware that is very common: potentially unwanted programs (or PUPs for […]

]]> By: Finnbogi Ragnar Ragnarsson https://www.emsisoft.com/en/blog/22497/potentially-unwanted-programs-pups-what-you-need-to-know/#comment-654012 Wed, 22 Jun 2016 16:33:00 +0000 http://blog.emsisoft.com/?p=22497#comment-654012 Two points that I want to add.

Several “free” programs skip the EULA part for the PUPs all together and don’t play by any rules.

What I know of in particular, are certain distribution of a well known video converter, tv streaming software and multitude of sites offering (usually others) flash games, that ask for installation of a “client”.

Also, many of them install root kits to hide the processes that manipulate your browsers.
If seen, the processes have random names, residing in temporary folders. Some of them make duplicates and run in duplicates.
Uninstall doesn’t work.

Malwarebytes Anti Rootkit can find the root kits (but many other do not), and no doubt your software.

It’s easy to get rid of, if you know what you are doing, but it is pure hell for average Joe and Jane.
If anti root kit doesn’t remove the processes, rename or delete will.

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