Computer virus control?

[hermosabeach]

Gary O
Who is selling you the virus removal?

Is it a local store or some piker over the phone????

[CBruce]

+1 for AVG and Kaspersky

I've used AVG for years, but it let a nasty trojan through that eventually attached itself to a critical windows .exe, and from there it was a flood of malware on my system...culiminating in the FBI Moneypak ransomware that completely locked my system. Took me days to undo all of that. Pretty bad when your AV software can identify something, but can't actually do anything about it. If you know what it is then why did you let it through in the first place?!

Got Norton (free with rebate) with a new HD the other day, so going to give that a try for a bit. I'm not exactly reckless on the internet. I use Gmail, Facebook, browse a couple of mainstream forums...obviously don't open attachments or run .exes that I come across. People are getting pretty devious about injecting viruses and malware these days. It's not a quesiton of if anymore, it's a question of when...

[stilly]

I just got a hit yesterday looking for something. I was at google and searched garden plumbing or something along that line because I was looking for info on how to run water lines in my garden. I have the habit of right clicking on links and opening them in new tabs and the 5th one I clicked on was a fake page that was infected and designed to infect those that visit it. Fortunately Avast actually caught it and notified me but if it did not do that then I am sure I would have had to reboot the system, cut the net connection and then rip out the infection manually (which I have had to do with avast sometimes anyways).

BTW, I call BS on having a computer with no AV for 10 years and not having any issues. I am sure there was a spot or two of trouble. I run a modified host file, active firewall (netlimiter) AND every now and then something gets a drive by installation in on me and I gotta spend 20 minutes reversing the damage. This might happen about once every 7 months or so and since I know how to react it is cleaned up rather fast, but the point is, **** still is out there even if you DO know what you are doing. Thankfully I think like a piece of malware sometimes so that give me an advantage.

[Lancear15]

Stilly. I use firefox with no script ... doesn't allow anything unless I allow it. Believe what you want. I'm guessing you use internet exploder?

[The War Wagon]

Sounds like they're California's leader retailer of Shineola.

I've run Norton 360 the last few years - Norton's come a LONG way since the mid/late 2000's, when it WAS a memory hog.

[Merc1138]

Stilly. I use firefox with no script ... doesn't allow anything unless I allow it. Believe what you want. I'm guessing you use internet exploder?

Yes, because every exploit/worm/virus/trojan comes through your browser

[stilly]

Stilly. I use firefox with no script ... doesn't allow anything unless I allow it. Believe what you want. I'm guessing you use internet exploder?

OKAY, I forgot that there ARE other browsers out there. I meant of course that if you are using IE then you should have gotten hit once or twice even if it was just a splattering on the side of your hull that you needed to park and scrape off.

I like to go all over the place and hunt things down. I USED to use only opera but I found many sites were MEANT for IE. I USED to NOT use IE and even tried to remove it back in winblows 98 but the sad thing is that I find myself going back to it. SO, I forget all of the time that there are other browsers out there but since I pretty much know how to control my IE and many sites are written for IE and favor IE over other browsers, I consider IE to be the norm.

Really that is the usual way that many get infected, unless you grab from the newsgroups and do not have a sandbox. Avast supposedly has a sandbox but I have not bothered learning to use it since I use sandboxie. E-mails are easy to block, but newsgroups and torrent sites can get you too. I only really use these things mainly and I am sure there are other ways too but the number 1 being internet, number 2 and 3 being newsgroups and torrents. Torrents are fairly easy to get safe if you read the comments and grab from a reputable place near sweden. As for newsgroups, they have been infested with a lot of *******s that deliberately try to infect you wth fake programs... Anyways, we are going on a tangent again.

But now back to your configuration, EWWW. That is like eating low carb whole wheat tortillas from Smart & Delicious. Yeah it may be good for you but OH GOD does it taste like ****. No fun there... Gotta click on yes or no about every other second? No cool JASMINE full page ads popping up to show you hot half nekid chicks who want to be your internet chatting pal... :O Dunno if I could live with it. LoL.

:\

[mindwip]

Virus control starts with not getting one. Stop doing the things that got you the virus. Look up common rules for safe useage. This is no different then looking both ways from crossing the street. How you act in reallife has rules and so does the web, clicking willy nilly gets you into trouble.

3Rd a free anti virus, I like and use avast but there are otheres too.

[perpetual otter]

Pron websites still get me...

[Bobby Ricigliano]

As much as I love freeware, I don't mind paying for a good antivirus. I got turned on to NOD32 a few years ago thanks to Leo Laporte (KFI640) and I've been using it ever since. I think it is about $60 for a 2 year license. No bloat, no resource hogging, and catches / prevents everything.

[Falstaff]

The free norton that Comcast gives away didn't work for me, it didn't prevent the infections and it couldnt remove them. I had several infections including Trojans and my machine was definitely hijacked, microsoft utilities said the only fix would be an OS wipe and reinstall (a total pain since my OS us on a RAID array) anyway none of the mainline virus programs could remove the problems except for kaspersky. Kaspersky even had a standalone program (free download) that removed the really bad Trojan root kit (TDSS root kit very nasty apparently, Microsoft said basically yer effed if you have it you must reinstall windows)

[Coded-Dude]

which brings me to my next point.....always back up your data(makes wiping/reinstalling much easier).

[billofrights]

I use MS Security Essentials on everything at work (300+ machines). Prevention is best though, so here's an important step: On a Windows machine, DON'T USE THE ADMIN ACCOUNT. Set up an admin and a standard user account. Then only use the standard account, that doesn't have install priveleges. That will keep the vast majority of auto-install viruses and malware at bay. PASSWORD PROTECT BOTH ACCOUNTS. That way, you don't even need to log in to the admin to install something- in Vista and Win 7 it'll just prompt the standard user for the admin password, and you can still install software you mean to.

[Skidmark]

I use Avira free, and learn to live with its occasional ads. It has caught a few problems when I've shared USB sticks.

I also use NoScript and AdBlock Plus in the browser (FireFox). So when I visit sites, I don't see much flashy blingy annoyances. Even here at CalGuns, it's easy to turn off the banner ads, stops 'em dead.

[Nyanman]

I had Norton and MacAfee at one time, both ended up really screwing my computer over by removing critical files, taking up all the memory and processor, etc. The one computer actually had files required to boot deleted from it. That was fun to fix.

My new computer just runs Avira, and the free version. Uses few enough resources that games can run in the foreground without putting it in a game mode, and it has, so far, done a really good job.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 2