My virus, trojan, malware experience..and resolution

03/29/2011 | Professional

[library user]

I like Avira Personal Anti-Virus too. It's free and updates every 24 hours. Been using it for 4-5 years and haven't gotten infected.

[Still Thinking]

We have service through comcast, and he informs me... that norton antivirus is FREE, full version, due to our business with comcast.

Still overpriced.

[Vendome]

Norton is a bloated pig that hogs resources.

The tool you should have used was Malwarebytes.

Further to protect your computer you should have installed Spybot(free). Run it once a week to make sure everything is clean.

F-prot should stop just about anything and runs in the background without beating on your hard drive the way Norton does.

[HossB86]

I know... but when you’re just kidding, what does it hurt?

:D

Hoss

[JABit]

I have used the corporate versions of McAfee and Norton. Both constantly allowed infection of the nearly 100 computers covered. I switched to Kaspersky and never had another infection. Since I have retired, I run Kaspersky exclusively on my home network, and still have a perfect record of no infections. Not free, but they are definitely worth a look.

[Sergio]

bkmk

[MEG33]

I just had that awful fake virus scanner pop up while searching for flowering trees..Just turned off the computer..So far no problems..I have paid Norton and am happy with it..

I get problems blocked while visiting my Photobucket account...doing searches for landscapes, etc.
It is indeed a mistake to think you can only pick up viruses by searching naughty sites.

I run Advanced system care, a freebie occasionally, too.

[madamemayhem]

tag for later.

[tacticalogic]

I know... but when you’re just kidding, what does it hurt?

Nothing until somebody thinks their favorite product or company has been dissed. Then it can be a really, really big deal. Depending on what product or company it is.

[dangerdoc]

There’s the problem, once you’ve installed Norton, it is very difficult to get rid of.

[Revolting cat!]

A pretty good selection of programs on CNET. (I'm installing Zone Alarm as we speak.)

[databoss]

Windows is a dead os move or have a life of misery dealing with this nonsense .....use a Linux distro or buy a Mac

[Revolting cat!]

During my corporate days (in IT) the company used a corporate version of McAfee, had a firewall, some websites blocked, and still had weekly infections of a bunch of user computers in all depts. How and why, I dunno, but my PC never got the bugs from the internal network, probably because I used a couple of additional tools.

[The Toad]

If you are using MS Internet Explorer--especially if it's an older version--consider using something else. Computers running IE are typically a target for viruses. Consider using another browser such as FireFox.

Also have a good Firewall and Antivirus running. The ones built-in to Microsoft are okay, but there are a number of free ones that are superior.

[Professional]

My 3 computer network here at my biz is just about 2 yrs old. In the past I’d been really careful about what I bought, but I was in a hurry and wound up buying 3 bad computers. They have been slow as molasses for the duration, and have AMD chips. Something is seriously wrong with these AMD Athlon 64 processors, and even after installing a patch to the drivers, they stink.

In a bizarre twist though, in my desperate hours of trying to fix my computer, I over installed my xp pro OS and the speed picked up 4 fold. So, I’m assuming there is some sort of software hardware conflict.

The computer expert in my office right now, is going to try the same thing now with the other two computers, but it is taking FOREVER, because those other two pcs are barely moving. Ugh...

6-12 months from now, I’ll torch the old system and buy something completely new. I’d like to incorporate smart phones with the computers, state of the art stuff. I’ll be very picky.... Any suggestions welcome.

[Professional]

That crazy set of problems I had, it hijacked the mozilla firefox browser as well as the IE I was using.

[discostu]

I hope you didn’t put Norton AV on your machine. Norton AV is hands down the WORST software available. Whenever you see a game that says to turn off your AV to play, they mean Norton. It’s a pig, it’s unstable, and it doesn’t uninstall clean. Go with Avast, also free, and doesn’t suck. Used to use AVG but they went very naggy, I understand the desire to turn customers using your free product into customers using your pay product, but don’t bug me about it every couple of week; I have a brother-in-law like that, I don’t give him money either.

[Professional]

Seems to me, that the best way to stay out of trouble is to be very careful about checking out new websites.

Used to be pretty common getting viruses from emails, especially those stupid chain emails, but most email hosting these days seems to stop the problems??? Thankfully so, because it is much harder to get folks to stop sending you stupid email stuff...

[houeto]

I get spam e-mails from myself all the time and have not been able to stop it. I was told by my ISP that it would take the PC manufacturer to solve the problem. I do not believe that.

[AbolishCSEU]

Yep, it’s called browser poisoning and you don’t have to download anything. It’s a “driveby” download (not unlike the mainstream media and their brainwashing)

I like to use combofix in conjunction with malwarebytes.

Sometimes you have to rename the .exe to .com to trick it into running in safe mode with networking.