It seems that my previous, English editon of AVPE Classic's Notifier was not working properly. It was supposed to popup a browser window and it never did. That's why I got suspicious because it asked to access the Internet and even if I allowed it, nothing happened.

Now I have the Deutsch version of AVPE Klassik. I got it because I could not get an English version. The server was/is perpetually unavailable. The d/l from the German site of FreeNet went very smoothly. It took a half hour to get an update but when it came it was at highspeed.

I do not care what language the AV uses as long as it works. My acquaintance with the German language does help.

The Notifier.exe worked properly in the German version this morning although it ate up 15 Mb of RAM to do it. I turned it off.

Btw, I have some experts looking into it and they have not got back to me yet.

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Microsoft MVP Consumer Security 2006, 2007 & 2008

[cleared]

Thank you mav1976.

(edited by author)

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Microsoft MVP Consumer Security 2006, 2007 & 2008

I blocked notifier with my firewall. The I deleted the .exe from the folder.

That is what to do about this thing. It's not spyware, it's advertising. As bpm3k says, just block it at the firewall. Whenever Notifier tries to access the Internet, AVPE will produce a box informing you that it has been blocked at the firewall. (Like I don't know?) Just click OK to make the box go away.

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Microsoft MVP Consumer Security 2006, 2007 & 2008

Well, if it's advertising, that makes it 'adware'; but since that expression covers a multitude of sins, I think we can consider Notifier at the benign end of the spectrum!

The thing about blocking it at the FW though, is that you still get a box popping up that needs to be closed - does it really matter if the box is empty or full of adverts, if you still have to click to get rid of it?

If you want to put a stop to the annoyance, you might just as well go the whole hog and delete Notifier.

I'm allowing it to run because, one of these days, it may want to inform me that I've won some money on the H+BEDV sweepstake!

Hi guys,

notifier is a simple marketing instrument to give us the opportunity of some advertisement (for our own products). It simply loads a specific web page from the Internet. Which web page to load is specified by a control file which is downloaded during update. Notifier accesses the Internet via http (Port 80) as IE does. So notifier is no spyware or something similar - it simply displays web pages.

If it's annoying for you, make sure you click "OK" always. This ensures that a specific web page ("message") is shown only once! If you have acknowleded a message using OK, notifier marks this message as "seen" using an ID. A click on "Close" in the right upper corner will NOT mark the message (yet).

Thanks Tosal. We appreciate the explanation.

However, I have limited RAM when I am online. I cannot and must not have my browser (not IE) open to a webpage when I am updating. You might tell me to get more RAM but why should I pay extra to accommodate something like this?

So, I block it at the firewall. I get a message box which uses far less RAM than my browser and I click OK on that box. Done.

Btw, renaming a file prevents the program from finding and opening it.

I truly consider AVPE to be a fine program which I am willing to pay for as soon as H+BEDV Datentechnik GmbH provides a mailing address where I can send an International Money Order. I never use credit cards online.

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Microsoft MVP Consumer Security 2006, 2007 & 2008

Notifier is NOT a browser, it simply uses the Windows internal browser control as a kind of plug-in in order to display a web page. So it does not consume too much RAM. However, it's up to you to rename it if you don't like the popups during update.

Btw. a commercial version of AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic (including some additional features like Mail Scanner, faster updates, Adware/Spyware detection) is available here:

http://www.antivir-pe.de/en/

I did not say that Notifier was a browser. It opens my browser in order to display the page. I turn off my browser for updates.

Enough about that.

Thank you for the link.

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Microsoft MVP Consumer Security 2006, 2007 & 2008