Dubious Google program that WILL NOT DIE
Posted: 2008-09-27 03:55pm
I just installed iTunes on my PC as I now have an iPod, and so I was doing a clean-up to kill all the services and crap (i.e. Bonjour, Quicktime) that it sprayed like piss all over my start-up files. In the process I also looked for other unknown programs on start-up, and come across a program called
C:\Program Files\Google\Update\GoogleUpdate.exe
which I've not seen before.
Now I do have Google earth and the Google plug-in, but no other Google tools (i.e. no toolbar or anything like that). So I assume its associated with them. So I try uninstalling both and restarting. No dice, its still there.
Defender won't let me kill it (from the startup list or while running), so I try using msconfig to remove it from the start-up service list. msconfig claims that its stopped and gone from the start-up program list, but: lo and behold after a restart its still bloody there. And msconfig still thinks its gone.
Process Explorer claims that it runs under the same "svchost.exe" as the Windows Update does. hijackthis.de says that its OK when I tested that. All my AV and spyware programs just shrug and say alls OK. Soooo....it probably isn't spyware pretending to be a Google program, but an actual genuine product of the evil G Empire.
Does anyone know WTF this program is and if it is maybe actually doing something useful (maybe related to the search toolbar in Firefox)? Or is it deletion time?
C:\Program Files\Google\Update\GoogleUpdate.exe
which I've not seen before.
Now I do have Google earth and the Google plug-in, but no other Google tools (i.e. no toolbar or anything like that). So I assume its associated with them. So I try uninstalling both and restarting. No dice, its still there.
Defender won't let me kill it (from the startup list or while running), so I try using msconfig to remove it from the start-up service list. msconfig claims that its stopped and gone from the start-up program list, but: lo and behold after a restart its still bloody there. And msconfig still thinks its gone.
Process Explorer claims that it runs under the same "svchost.exe" as the Windows Update does. hijackthis.de says that its OK when I tested that. All my AV and spyware programs just shrug and say alls OK. Soooo....it probably isn't spyware pretending to be a Google program, but an actual genuine product of the evil G Empire.
Does anyone know WTF this program is and if it is maybe actually doing something useful (maybe related to the search toolbar in Firefox)? Or is it deletion time?