I wish people who wrote virus programs used their time more productively. I’ve been hit yet again on my older PC which is still running XP. MacAfee, provided by my cable company, failed to stop it. Last time, I went crazy, trying all kinds of things and ultimately reset it from the beginning. I never got around to putting all my backed up data back on the PC this time.
Instead of the stress this time, I’d like to try to put a positive spin on this. I’d like to ask the community what their favorite anitvirus tools are and their favorite web sites for advice on problems like this are.
I’ll start by saying that Malware Bytes (MB) really impressed me to the point that I never got around to reinstalling my old favorite SpyBot Search and Destroy. Unfortunately, the current culprit has rendered MB unusable as attempting to run a scan causes the PC to reboot immediately. So, what is your current favorite tool?
My favorite is a hammer to the hard-drive. There are definitely some unwanted side effects from the “cure” but I generally feel a whole lot better at the end of the “therapy” session.
I do agree with you about Spybot Search and Destroy. It has always been a good friend to me in the past.
My favorite tool is my Mac. Haven’t had to deal with a virus for 5 years. On topic though, I used AVG Free all the time when I had my old laptop. It would always tell me where the virus file was located and then I could go into safe mode and just delete the virus and be good to go again.
I’ve had a paid subscription for AVG for 3 yrs now, and it beats Symantec by miles. And McCrapafee is a joke. How did you get the kooties? Email? Bad website?
Avast free anti-virus home edition. I use it in combination with MW and so far have never had a problem.
I also run Ad-aware which is also free. Both Avast and Ad-aware run in the background and will just alert me if I am on a website that has a virus. It’ll block it before it even has a chance to run.
Sorry to hear it happened to you again, Erik.
Top 3 things your Windows PC shouldn’t be without:
- firewall (I use Zonealarm)
- anti-virus (AVG Free is pretty good and is free; paid version is even better)
- antispyware or anti-malware (I use Spybot S&D, Spyware Blaster and Malwarebytes).
And make sure they are always up-to-date. Installing them once and thinking they’ll do their jobs without the need of ever being updated will eventually lead to problems. So how often should one check for updates? Every time one uses the computer – it’s like washing hands before eating.
PS: scrap IE – instead, use Firefox for browsing.
http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-10448331-12.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody
Firefox Trojan add-ons? uh-oh…
Firefox add-ons are made by 3rd parties, not Mozilla. So it’s a given that one must beware of the risks of installing them.
IE, even without plugins or add-ons, is already a cesspool of problems.