Help

[Rie]

Does anyone know of any decent free virus scans? Norton Ant Virus is rubbish and keeps allowing the computer to be plagued by tracking cookies and Trojan horses (sobs) :’(

 

[wildwood]

Never had a problem with AVG free edition. Always seems to do its job, and it's errr free

Direct link to download here:-

http://free.grisoft.com/softw/70free/setup/avg75free_467a1008.exe

 

[tek-monkey]

There's a free version of kaspersky I find quite good, get it here. Just tell it not to install the toolbar, as its crap.

 

[Sofa]

I have used http://www.free-av.com/ for years.

 

[Doctor]

AVG got recomended on the Gadget Show along with Zone Alarm free firewall and Ad-aware for getting rid spy ware stuff. (Google for links - I'm feeling too lazy, sorry)

 

[db]

i'd defo recommend AVG, and kapersky gets good reviews as well.. ad-aware is great for spring cleaning..

i would absolutely, definitely, 100% recommend against Zone Alarm.. it is single handedly the easiest way to break your internet.. despite getting good reviews in almost all the press, if you speak to actual users it gets universally panned.. steer clear!

 

[Rie]

http://www.ccleaner.com/
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1
http://www.ewido.net/en/
http://www.download.com/3000-2144-10122137.html

Thanks for the links but so far I've used all these, each time finding something new wrong :S only for the same problem to reoccur.
Computer crashes in safe mode and is stupidly slow to the extent it's come to an almost complete standstill. So many of mum's computers go down the same road and die after a few months, goodness knows what she does to them!

 

[taitou]

Have you uninstalled Norton Anti Virus? In my experience, that may be what's actually causing all the feck ups And personally, I'd go with AVG too.

 

[Wookie]

Norton? Dump that shit.
Anybody else remember when Norton software was actually (SHOCK!) _good_?... Like, you weren't a serious geek without a copy of the Norton Utilities in your toolbox?

 

[taitou]

Pfffffffttt... it was a long time ago when norton was good.. I remember having it on my first PC (a Pentium 150Mhz..) and it was crap then, just slowed everything down, then crash/froze/blew up

 

[Rie]

Awwww!

Taken an hour so far to try and get rid of Norton, and still nowhere near gone :S Even task manager says not responding now Can't send e-mails, can hardly search web, surprised It's not crashing completely. I am in fact expecting it blow up or something.

Would AVG free version still protect or do I need to subscribe?

 

[victoriab]

This probably isn't the best advice, but it's my method of getting rid of weird computer problems that won't go...Go into Task manager and look at the processes, then end any suspicious looking ones. Disclaimer: THIS MAY BREAK YOUR COMPUTER MORE
I did it once and it started working again, so I located the the processes that were dodgy and found that they were some sort of virus that I just deleted at the source.
FOLLOW THIS ADVICE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Hope that helps.

 

[Wookie]

Pfffffffttt... it was a long time ago when norton was good.. I remember having it on my first PC (a Pentium 150Mhz..) and it was crap then, just slowed everything down, then crash/froze/blew up

Ah, but I'll bet you had the Windows 95 version that came in a big yellow box... That was when Symantec laid their greasy little paws on it. I *hated* that version.

Although when I got it for my AMD 466, it didn't slow the system down too much.

Awwww!
Taken an hour so far to try and get rid of Norton, and still nowhere near gone :S Even task manager says not responding now Can't send e-mails, can hardly search web, surprised It's not crashing completely. I am in fact expecting it blow up or something.

Would AVG free version still protect or do I need to subscribe?

AVG is a very good program, it's what almost everyone I know uses and indeed it's what my work use. Try and avoid installing more than one virus scanner though; it used to be and as far as I know still might be the case that they might detect each other's virus dictionaries as viruses...

If you pay my bus fare and keep me supplied with cups of tea and cheese sandwiches, I'll come round and have a look at it for yer

This probably isn't the best advice, but it's my method of getting rid of weird computer problems that won't go...Go into Task manager and look at the processes, then end any suspicious looking ones. Disclaimer: THIS MAY BREAK YOUR COMPUTER MORE
I did it once and it started working again, so I located the the processes that were dodgy and found that they were some sort of virus that I just deleted at the source.
FOLLOW THIS ADVICE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Hope that helps.

Rie, if you're going to do this, *PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT PROCESSES YOU'RE ENDING!!!!* Some processes with strange and cryptic names actually do very useful things. At the very least, you risk the system properly crashing; if you end a process that's halfway through writing something to disk, it won't be able to finish, and you risk doing strange things to the drive.

The other problem with killing-processes approach is that it cures the symptoms, not the cause. The PC probs you have now may be caused by software nasties, but if all you do is end their processes, they'll just run again next time you boot the PC.

It is a good way to find out for sure if you're infected with anything, though.

If you're going to do this, make a list of all the processes running on the system and google them to find out what they are. If you're not told it's safe to end them or that they're something you'd rather not have running, *LEAVE THEM ALONE!*

Speaking of ending processes, if anyone finds an equivalent to DASAT for Windows, please tell me...

** EDIT ** Added response to Rie and noir2985.

 

[Wookie]

AVG got recomended on the Gadget Show along with Zone Alarm free firewall and Ad-aware for getting rid spy ware stuff. (Google for links - I'm feeling too lazy, sorry)

http://www.majorgeeks.com/

 

[Rie]

If you pay my bus fare and keep me supplied with cups of tea and cheese sandwiches, I'll come round and have a look at it for yer

*Quote from mum* "Not only bus fare and cheese sandwiches, but also chocolate cake, Nobby's Nuts, mango, and manna from heaven! Seriously, I would be sooooo grateful!"

This probably isn't the best advice, but it's my method of getting rid of weird computer problems that won't go...Go into Task manager and look at the processes, then end any suspicious looking ones. Disclaimer: THIS MAY BREAK YOUR COMPUTER MORE
I did it once and it started working again, so I located the the processes that were dodgy and found that they were some sort of virus that I just deleted at the source.
FOLLOW THIS ADVICE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Hope that helps.

Rie, if you're going to do this, *PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT PROCESSES YOU'RE ENDING!!!!* Some processes with strange and cryptic names actually do very useful things. At the very least, you risk the system properly crashing; if you end a process that's halfway through writing something to disk, it won't be able to finish, and you risk doing strange things to the drive.

The other problem with killing-processes approach is that it cures the symptoms, not the cause. The PC probs you have now may be caused by software nasties, but if all you do is end their processes, they'll just run again next time you boot the PC.

It is a good way to find out for sure if you're infected with anything, though.

If you're going to do this, make a list of all the processes running on the system and google them to find out what they are. If you're not told it's safe to end them or that they're something you'd rather not have running, *LEAVE THEM ALONE!*

I Don't know what processes are important or not so i'm gonna leave them well alone.

 

[Alan B'Stard]

Avast is really good for anti virus

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

and it's free!

Doctor's suggestions for ad-aware and zone alarm are ones I'd also make.

good luck.

 

[Lisa]

Im SO glad Rie asked about this (was going to do it myself but she beat me to it ) Will defo look into AVG and ZoneAlarm.
Lately my PC has been plagued with viruses and popups, and my screen has just been lemonpartied. Internet, you have indeed disgraced my delicate sensibilities.

 

[db]

Im SO glad Rie asked about this (was going to do it myself but she beat me to it ) Will defo look into AVG and ZoneAlarm.
Lately my PC has been plagued with viruses and popups, and my screen has just been lemonpartied. Internet, you have indeed disgraced my delicate sensibilities.

i would strongly recommend against zonealarm, but hey that's just my opinion from experience..

what on earth is a "lemon party"?? lol.. it sounds like the sort of place where only (ahem) beefburgers are served - no sausages allowed, nudge nudge wink wink


edit: never mind, i think i've just remembered.. and it's the polar opposite of the "no sausage" rule i posted above lol..

 

[Jheych]

I had zonealarm on my machine ferages .. and it worked fine .. well it loked like it did once you worked out what was allowed and what wasn't .. Nyway when we got a wireless network put in place ZA went very odd and didnt perform half as well.. no idea why .. so no longer use it . Certainly agree with the AVG and Adaware etc very handy tools

 

[FooFighter]

I had zonealarm on my machine ferages .. and it worked fine .. well it loked like it did once you worked out what was allowed and what wasn't .. Nyway when we got a wireless network put in place ZA went very odd and didnt perform half as well.. no idea why .. so no longer use it . Certainly agree with the AVG and Adaware etc very handy tools

Most routers have built in firewall protection so you may of had a conflict problem.

I found that most of my PC slowdown is due to general untidyness.
I've got into the habit of regularly using CCleaner, Spy-bot S+D, AVG antispyware (formerly ewido).
CCleaner also has a registry issues cleaner which purges all the obsolete info in the registry. It does back the info up just in case tho.