alg.exe - what is it?

[Stu R]

I keep getting this crop up as a trojan horse when AVG anti-virus scans the computer. Annoying as every time I reboot it finds it again, regardless of the usual tricks like doing it in safe mode etc.

I've obviously googled it, and get conflicting reports about what it is, with some saying it's safe and a regular windows component, and others saying that it's imminent death and my computer is about to take over the world and all that live in it. Well not that bad but you get the picture.

Other antivirus software doesn't pick it up, windows defender says everything is tickety boo.

So am I right in assuming that AVG is just being rubbish and trying to scare me?

Cheers
Stu.

[David Godfrey]

Where is the file located? If you had another system (same OS and patch/update level) that is known clean you could check the version, file size and other file data to compair.

False positives do happen, and unless the av companies get lots of reports usually just fix in the next dat release.

There are online submissions you could try some are here:
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
http://www.kaspersky.com/scanforvirus
http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/solutions/a...

[AlbertTatlock]

Alg.exe is needed for Intenet Connection Sharing and the Internet Firewall - so it should not be removed. It is part of the OS. Hope this helps

[David Godfrey]

AlbertTatlock said:

Alg.exe is needed for Intenet Connection Sharing and the Internet Firewall - so it should not be removed. It is part of the OS. Hope this helps

As the OP said, there are conflicting views on this, depending on where the file is and its version and other file data can help work out if it is indead the actual ics service or malware/trojan.