What the hell is Askservice.exe?

A google search was useless. All I got for my trouble was web sites that wanted to sell me their wonderful anti-malware products.

What happened was, I upgraded Zone Alarm to the latest version today, and suddenly it is getting all bent out of shape over the presence of this .exe file, which it never seemed to give a damn about before, but now does. This is annoying, because it slows down IE to a crawl when I try to start it up.

Oh goody, IE crashes a lot now too. wtf???

Oh crap, I know what I did. Last night I watched a LOT of different videos on You Tube. Every time I do that, I get possible infections that are found by my various anti-malware programs. So far I have always assumed them to be false positives, but I quarantine the so called infected files anyway. But this time A squared found no problems, and Avast! didn't get upset at all last night. So what is going on? IS Askservice.exe malware? And could I have picked it up from You Tube?

(How does You Tube work anyway? Do they host the videos, or just give you a link to them? If they just link you, then I think I have watched my last You Tube video EVER.)

Dont know about youtube but as for the rest

If your system is up to date and a legal install follow these instructions

"Please go to the HIJACK THIS LOGS forum, read the post at
the top from THE FAT CONTROLLER which explains how to post a HIJACK THIS LOG.
and post your log in that forum along with a brief description of what problems you are having."

'should get some advice on youtube there too'

If your install of m$ is not fully legal then install this programme and scan

download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

Extra Note:
If MBAM encounters a file that is difficult to remove,you will be presented with 1 of 2 prompts,click OK to either and let MBAM proceed with the disinfection process,if asked to restart the computer,please do so immediately.

Hope this helps
D.M.

Do you happen to have the Ask toolbar?
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/AskService.exe-24245.html

No, I do not have any sort of Ask_toolbar installed in IE. Good old Zone Alarm just installed some kind of anti-malware toolbar in IE and Firefox without telling me they would do that, and certainly without my permission. At least Firefox gave me the option of uninstalling the toolbar, which I did, since I'm trying to keep Firefox as simple and crap-free as possible. I haven't looked at whether I can uninstall this toolbar from IE yet, because:

I just want to know what Askservice.exe is. It seems that IE is slowing down and then crashing because I have been denying this "Askservice.exe" file access to the internet. Bleeping computers on that first page says it is a "valid" program, but "not required" on startup. Well, I don't know if Askservice.exe is activated upon startup, but it certainly seems to need to run when I start IE.

I have run Avast! in full deep scan mode, A Squared Free in deep scan mode, and done a complete system scan with AVG Anti Spyware. (Spyware Blaster is fully up to date, also.) All came up clean.

Thanks for the replies. I have a fully legit install of XP, but I downloaded that anti malware program anyhow. ;)

Perhaps I should contact Microsoft. Hopefully they will know what this little program is. This may just be yet another tempest in a teapot, with any luck. I hope.

Sorry Nameless. If you saw me you'd see a blank look on my face. I have no idea about any of this.

Apparently it has to do with the toolbar Zone Alarm automatically gives you for your browsers during an install or upgrade. It is added whether you want it or not. Firefox asked me on first startup after the upgrade if I wanted it or not. I refused it. But it is still in IE. If I refuse Askservice.exe permission to access the internet, IE crashes.
It shows up in add/remove programs, so I guess I can get rid of it that way.

***Yep, that got rid of it, and the corresponding folder in program files. The toolbar is from Ask.com. They admit that they gather info about you so that they can target ads at you.

I tried the Commodo Firewall a few months ago, but it was evil on this PC. Crash crash crash crash crash, was all it was good for. So I went back to Zone Alarm. But I am not impressed with these guys right now.

Have you tried Sunbelt Personal Firewall

Have you tried to let XP be your software firewall and let a router be your main firewall. My cousin Mick used to have Black Ice and would spent countless hours each week monitoring, tracking, and regulating this software firewall. I got him to put in a router and all attacks stopped instantly. He got rid of the Black Ice and they have since gone out of business. Just get a router and be done with it. Screw software firewalls.

Tell Hottie that she has a router and still had problems, software firewalls stop both inward bound and outward so you are covered both ways ...
and xp firewall doesn't even deserve to be called one..

Indeed, I have a router but I keep the software firewall on the off chance that something sneaks past my defenses. Zone Alarm has let me know something is wrong in the past, when some piece of crap tried to phone home.

And that's what this whole fuss was about. I didn't know that damned toolbar had an ulterior motive until it tried to phone home and I wondered what the hell it was.