anti spywear download advice please

[Peter Normington]

daft question, but have you run defender?
it needs to be scheduled to run at intervals
I find AVG well worth buying, not that expensive and I have never had a problem for years (finding some wood to touch)

Peter

[David Rogers]

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

this is a respected & legitimate malware scanner that picks up things that certain antivirus packages miss.

It also includes removal help.

I would however recommend paying a small fee per year for a top spec internet security package – the £20-£25 it costs far outweighs the loss of data and downtime.

Personally – I run ZONELABS – internet security suite on all of our PCs and site networks and at home and is the only (cost effective) one I recommend.

Dave

[Peter Mindham]

I always use AVG on all my connected machines. I also use Firefox instead of microsoft explorer. It is faster and much more resilient to hackers, spam etc.

Peter

[Jill Marie Welsh]

I use malwarebytes, spybot search and destroy, and avast.
Also ccleaner.
http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html
http://www.avast.com/index
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
All are idiot-proof (if I can use them) and free.
Love….Jill

[Ian Pople]

superantispyware

[Matt Boyd]

this is what i’m running >>
windows xp 32bit
service pack 3

avg free edition
malwarebytes
ad aware
spy bot
regcleaner
cleanup
auslogics disk defrag

all are free and easy to use!!

[Warren Beard]

I don’t use anything …..

… Apple Mac :lol1:

I’m just a spreader 🙄

[Steve McAdie]

I use Comodo firewall and anti-virus.

Steve

[John Enright]

Apple all the way!! (but pc’s do have they’re uses)

I also run 3 pc’s all windows xp no antivirus, no spyware and touch wood have had zero problems, but I’ve always only allowed one pc for internet and email access to limit infection

[Peter Normington]

quote Matt Boyd:

this is what i’m running >>
windows xp 32bit
service pack 3

avg free edition
malwarebytes
ad aware
spy bot
regcleaner
cleanup
auslogics disk defrag

all are free and easy to use!!

if you buy the avg suite all the rest are not needed, and running all those different progs, just slows down your pc.

Warren, running a mac does not mean you are excempt from hacking, it does happen

Peter

Peter

[David Rogers]

quote john enright:

Apple all the way!! (but pc’s do have they’re uses)

I also run 3 pc’s all windows xp no antivirus, no spyware and touch wood have had zero problems, but I’ve always only allowed one pc for internet and email access to limit infection

Why LIMIT infection – why not pay £25 and virtually guarantee zero infection on all of the PCs. All it takes is one click or visit to an iffy site or accidently running something you’ve been emailed and years worth of data can be lost.

No point is saying it won’t happen…it’s just a matter of when.

Not just you john – but in general – why risk your business for the sake of pennies, our files are probably one of the most valuable things we own.

[Cheryl Smith]

Thanks for all the tips and pointers folks…..I am hoping to invest in a mac someday but for now I have a gremlin…Files are certainly worth protecting…I also had a worm on my comp once which kept sending my friends dodgy emails, and that is not very friendly so you do need to take responsibility of keeping your comp clean for other peoples sake too…like all virus infections…one sneeze and it spreads.
😮

[Hugh Potter]

AVG free does fine on the virus front, I use ccleaner to tidy up all the regisrties etc (avg doesn’t do that), and spybot as a back up, it sometimes finds things that avg misses.

touch wood, i’ve had hardly any malware in the past year or so, Firefox is also well worth using instead of IE. I only use IE for hotmail emails due to an issue i had with hotmail on FF, not sure if the issue has been fixed since or not, just habit to use two browsers now.

Hugh

[RayRosher]

Three Words Oh! My God
I cannot believe some of the Crap you lot are using on your Pc’s

Ok Two options One Free And one Paid.

Free
Microsoft Security Essentials,
As Good as if not better than a lot of the free and paid for stuff out their inc, avg, Mcaffe, Norton,

Paid
Eset Nod32
As never let a virus in, In over ten years, Gets top marks from all of the major company’s

However whatever anitviral stuff you have on your system must be completely removed, that includes checking on their websites for uninstall tools Avg and Norton dont like to be uninstalled and will put up a bit of a fight

However if your pcs at the point it likely that you’ll never get rid of the spyware and crap on your system as it could be embedded to far into your system, it may have to be a reinstall of windows unfortunately.

[Cheryl Smith]

ooooo defender found me a nasty nasty Trojan….ewww.
hope it is all gone gone gone…
nasty :thumbdown:

[George Elsmore]

Eset Nod32 all the way

[Cheryl Smith]

I think this awful thing is embedded itself nice and cosy on my system.
I go to look for any kind of anti virus info or go to look for Eset Nod32 and it redirects to something like ebay…getting the odd popups from nowhere too…even tho popups are disabled
🙁

[George Elsmore]

http://www.eset.co.uk/LandingPage/ESET_ … lAodO2tyqQ

heres the link if it helps Cheryl

[Cheryl Smith]

spot on honey.

they are doing version 4 on amazon…3 computers one year for £28.02.
bargain.

I dont mind paying for security because security is priceless.
Mcafee….didnt catch this one

[Stephen Morriss]

The problem with McAfee and Norton is that some viruses are written to mess with them as they are very popular.

I’m using Avast and Zonealarm, I was using AVG but just a few months ago they stopped playing with each other.
AVG blame it on ZoneAlarm and Zonealarm are saying not our fault, so I changed to Avast.
My laptop has Microsofts security thing on though and seems very good, it complains if you haven’t let it scan the computer for a while so you get reminded to run a scan.

If it carries on you’ll need a separate computer for your banking that does nothing else!

Steve

[Alex Pirozek]

Before you buy any new virus software there’s a few more things to try. If you go to
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/
they should be able to help you.

Looks like you have a browser Hijacker installed that’s redirecting you all over.
I find stuff like this has to be removed with a few programs as it’s probably set to run in the registry every time you start up and can’t be deleted by just removing a file etc.

I’ve also had the Windows security centre replaced by Antispyware centre, this looks and runs identical to the genuine windows version but is Malware and comes up with all sorts of rubbish.

Everyone has their own opinions on which software to use but you already have the nasty on the system and chances are most virus scanners/ programs will not be able to remove it.
There’s only a few that in my experience that might help.

Malwarebytes is the first one and it will run in safe mode if required.
http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Then HijackThis
This will produce a log of you system and show you the program/ or registry entry that’s redirecting you. This will be a long list that you will probably struggle to understand but the kind people on Bleeping Computer will need to see this log in order to help you (if you choose to receive their help) that is.
http://www.combofix.org/hijackthis.php

Spybot is another program that you should have running as this will hopefully stop the software getting on the system in the first place that’s redirecting your searches on the net.
http://www.combofix.org/spybot.php

If it’s still there after the above then this last one will probably remove it for good.
ComboFix is a program that will run and remove any issues, it scans very deep into the system, is powerful and will take a while to run and scan. You will need to disable mcafee or any other virus scanners that you have running before you run the program as it will be identified as a virus and be removed before you get a chance to run the program. (By the nature of how this program works it will flag up as a virus, do not worry this is a false positive and is not a virus)

Only download ComboFix from Bleeping Computer or Forospyware, not anywhere else.
And follow instructions on the page.
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/combofi … e-combofix

Once your system is clean, check your system restore settings and if it’s monitoring (ON) then turn it off momentary as this will clear all previous restore points (so you don’t re introduce the malware back on to your system), once off then you can turn it back on and create a fresh restore point (with a clean system).

[Cheryl Smith]

Thank you so much for the time to give advice everyone….
it is quite a helpless feeling that someone is messing around with your system…it is bad enough getting endless sales calls on your office (and mobile nowadays) phones….seems a real fight to get some sort of privacy of any kind as a business person…always someone wanting to hijack your precious time!
Cheryl

[Jon Marshall]

I had that virus Cheryl and it’s evil. I cannot imagine the amount of people who are having their computers rendered all but useless on a daily basis by this sort of thing, these virus makers should be shot – and I’m not joking.

I tried virtually everything to get rid of it and the only thing that worked is Combofix.

The thing with these infections nowadays is that they install themselves right in the low level sectors of the HD where the OS can’t even see so the virus programs are useless. They are known as rootkits.

If you can suffer a complete reinstall then that is your best bet as you can never be sure if you have totally removed it.

[Alex Pirozek]

I recently removed a Trojan from my friends PC, it might have been a coincidence but she said that she had a call from a PC repair centre saying that her PC has been sending out error messages to their system and they would help her to remove any virus’s etc that might be on the system. I told her that there’s no way that would happen (especially with the system she had in place). When the chap rang back again with the cost of his services to remove this she asked for all of his details and the company he worked for and funnily enough he put the phone down.
You can never be to careful nowadays with PC’s but i suppose a little common sense would help even if you don’t understand PC talk.

Anyway getting back to the topic, ComboFix (from Bleeping computer)should fix it but only use it after you disable Mcafee for a short while until it works it’s magic.