Tech Question: Free Spyware/Virus Protection (& more)

[James_B_Wads2000]

Anyone got any suggestions. I bought McAffe last year and was berated by many for spending $50 when there are free options.



James
:compthrow:

[jumar]

I have AVG, Spybot and Ad-aware

[James_B_Wads2000]

I found these links on the Radio From Hell blog (http://radiofromhell.livejournal.com/?skip=20&tag=jake+of+the+web):


Jake of the Web 5/6/2008

Joyce emailed me to ask about options she had for anti-virus and anti-spyware software since the ones that came with her computer had expired. Fortunately, some of the best ones are also free:

AVG Anti-Virus
http://free.grisoft.com/

Ad-Aware
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/single/trialpay.php

and Spybot
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

(Disclaimer: I have used these free applications for years without issue. However, if you somehow jack up your computer, it's your own damn fault: don't come crying to me.)


http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/cgi-bin/seigmiaow.pl


http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/kitler/pics/kitler8.jpg




James

[asdf]

I run AVG, Spybot and Adware.


Malwarebytes is one of the best tools out there.
http://www.malwarebytes.org/

[Sombeech]

McAfee and Norton KILL your computer's RAM. There is too much involved with those programs.

[BruteForce]

Don't be cheap. Spend the money and get something like ZoneAlarm Internet Suite. It's well worth the spend.

It provides AV, Anti-Phishing, Firewall, Content Filtering, IM protection and an eWallet function.

[asdf]

Don't be cheap. Spend the money

:roflol: you don't need to spend any money to be well protected

[BruteForce]

Don't be cheap. Spend the money

:roflol: you don't need to spend any money to be well protected

Yup! Powering down your computer is always the best protection. :2thumbs:

[Deathcricket]

I run AVG, Spybot and Adware.


Malwarebytes is one of the best tools out there.
http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Pearls of wisdom!

I do the exact same thing, except no virus scanner at all since I have a gmail account. I recently got a nasty trojan while downloading a video codec to convert AVI's the other day, and malwarebytes was the only prog that could get rid of it. So I added that to my list as well. I highly recommend it.

:2thumbs:

Zone alarm is great too. If you want, I'll pm you a torrent to try it out. It's a little restricting and over-zealous IMO. Picture vista when it asks you a thousands times "you sure you want to do/allow this?" But I guess that makes people feel secure. I found it super annoying and removed it.

Here's my recommendations for being completely safe and completely free.

1. Have 3 separate drives. Operating system on a small fast drive. Semi Important stuff (good porn and pirated video games) on a big cheap RAID. Super important stuff (kids pics, legal documents) on 2G FLASH removable drives ($15 costco).

2. No virus scanner. 90% of viruses come through email. If you use hotmail, gmail, yahoo, or any company, they most likely have a $10,000 system scanning your emails before they get to you. If you are still getting viruses through your email, switch immediately. Even when I worked at this dinky little company called Infowest, we still had an awesome email scanner and customers never got viruses through us, unless they did something really stupid (followed URL's to Viagra sites). If you have to have it for peace of mind, go AVG. It's free and doesn't use a lot of resources which is nice. If you have no virus scanner and do somehow get a virus, mostly from downloading porn, video games, or other torrent software. Just reformat the drive that you have only your operating system on. With a current up to date 3ghz machine it will take about half an hour from start to finish which is a shorter period of time that it takes me (a professional) to remove a tricky virus that probably would have slipped through your virus scanner in about 10 seconds anyways. The reason is, you probably downloaded the virus yourself and asked the machine to install it from a directory.

3. 3 adware scanners. Adaware, spybot and now malwarebytes (all free and work together). Run them at least once a week. This is the key to keeping your machine running proper. Every time I run into a machine that is down due to a virus, the machine is always infected with loads of spyware and the the browser is compromised. If you go to "google" and notice it bounces you to "my best inturzetz surch ever", act immediately. So many times I get on their machine and they say "it's been doing that for ages" and then are somehow surprised when their internet bank account is being invaded. I just shake my head and chuckle to myself. It's like " I lost my wallet and didn't cancel my credit cards" what do you mean someone charged my account?

[Iceaxe]

AVG
Spybot
Ad-aware.

That's all you need......

:2thumbs:

[asdf]

except no virus scanner at all
I have AVG on my machines but its always disabled :nod:



That's all you need...... :2thumbs:

and when you get some nasty stuff that none of those will remove.. use malwarebytes in safe mode. For shits and giggles run it after a spybot scan just to see what spybot missed.

[James_B_Wads2000]

Thanks for the great advice. Here is the deal: my sister's computer is running slow on the net and slow in general. I am sure she has a bunch of spyware and viruses hence the original question.

You guys got any other "quick fix" ideas out there that could help a slow computer to run faster? :ne_nau:



James

[DiscGo]

My approach is more reactive. I have everything I need (especially my pictures) backed up and if I get a virus, I try and remove it with f-secure online scan or hijack this. If I can't get rid of it, I reinstall my OS. So I actually do not use any anti-virus usually and have had very few programs


On my work computer I am required to use an anti-virus program and the best I have used are Bitdefender and ZoneAlarm. I currently use ZoneAlarm (and I like it) but will probably switch to Bitdefender when it runs out.

[DiscGo]

You guys got any other "quick fix" ideas out there that could help a slow computer to run faster? :ne_nau:
James


fsecure online scan will remove most malware

http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/ols.shtml



Here is the script for a batch file which can clear out some temp files to get your computer running a little faster:


C:
CD\
RD /S /Q TEMP
DEL /F /S /Q *.TMP
DEL *.LOG
MD TEMP
CD %SYSTEMROOT%
RD /S /Q TEMP
DEL *.LOG
ATTRIB -S TEMPOR~1
RD /S /Q TEMPOR~1
MD TEMP
CD %USERPROFILE%\LOCAL SETTINGS\
RD /S /Q TEMP
ATTRIB -S TEMPOR~1
RD /S /Q TEMPOR~1
MD TEMP
CD\

[James_B_Wads2000]

fsecure online scan will remove most malware

http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/ols.shtml



Here is the script for a batch file which can clear out some temp files to get your computer running a little faster:


C:


Batch file? Please explain. :ne_nau:


James

[Deathcricket]

Thanks for the great advice. Here is the deal: my sister's computer is running slow on the net and slow in general. I am sure she has a bunch of spyware and viruses hence the original question.

You guys got any other "quick fix" ideas out there that could help a slow computer to run faster? :ne_nau:



James

Sure!

1. Make sure the drive isnt full. At 10% free on the C:
2. Install all 3 adware programs and update them. Reboot in "safe mode" and run a scan with each. Reboot.
3. Start --> Run ---> msconfig -----> Ok. Go to last tab and disable "everything" automatically starting. Reboot machine and see if it runs fast. If it does, start turning of stuff 1 or 2 at a time until you find out what is slowing it down. Remove, reinstall, etc. Something might be hogging resources.
4. CNTRL ALT DEL. task manager, processes tab. Click on CPU to arrange by what is taking most power. Kill it.

[Iceaxe]

Or you guys could just stop looking at porn..... :roflol:


http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm62/DaDiff51/motivational%20posters/TheInternet-1.jpg

[Deathcricket]

Blasphemy!!!

:lol8:

Oh edit:




fsecure online scan will remove most malware

http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/ols.shtml



Here is the script for a batch file which can clear out some temp files to get your computer running a little faster:


C:


Batch file? Please explain. :ne_nau:


James

Batch file means it runs automatic. Just copy the text into a txt file and rename it to .bat instead of .txt. double click and should be good.

[Wasatch Rebel]

You guys got any other "quick fix" ideas out there that could help a slow computer to run faster? :ne_nau:



James

Run defrag at least once a month. Get rid of non-essential start-up programs and utilities. In fact, delete old programs that aren't used anymore, delete photos you no longer want, or move them to another storage place, like an archival cd, then run defrag. If you really want to get tweaky, stop some Windows Services from loading up automatically. The only other thing I'd suggest is adding more RAM if it isn't already maxed out.

On Spybot and Ad-aware---isn't there something about a conflict between the two? Like Ad-aware finds malware that is actually part of Spybot or visa versa?

[DiscGo]

Yeah, what Deathcricket said.

Open notepad.

Paste this text into notepad:

C:
CD\
RD /S /Q TEMP
DEL /F /S /Q *.TMP
DEL *.LOG
MD TEMP
CD %SYSTEMROOT%
RD /S /Q TEMP
DEL *.LOG
ATTRIB -S TEMPOR~1
RD /S /Q TEMPOR~1
MD TEMP
CD %USERPROFILE%\LOCAL SETTINGS\
RD /S /Q TEMP
ATTRIB -S TEMPOR~1
RD /S /Q TEMPOR~1
MD TEMP
CD\


Save as Clean PC.bat

and then double click on that file. I can log on your computer remotely if you'd like and get things going for you. Just let me know.

[live2ride]

Just download hitman pro for free and run it every so ofter and you will also be good to go!

[rockgremlin]

Other really good programs for eliminating trojans and other nasties are:

SDfix ---> http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic131299.html


and


CWshredder ---> http://www.download.com/CWShredder/3000-8022_4-10301587.html

[accadacca]

Get a Mac and never deal with it again... :haha:

[rockgremlin]

Get a Mac and never deal with it again... :haha:


http://i30.tinypic.com/okqz4k.jpg

[accadacca]

Yeah maybe I should just go grab a copy of Vista. :flipa:

Ahhh, I will just wait for Windows 7...see if it tanks as bad. Coming soon...I will be anxiously waiting for this release. :roll: :haha:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/
http://www.stealthcomputer.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/windows_7.jpg

[accadacca]

Golly it doesnt seem like Vista has been out that long either. So I did a quick search to find the release date.

January 30, 2007 :eek2:

XP was released on October 25, 2001

Carry on...

[Deathcricket]

Get a Mac and never deal with it again... :haha:

Another cool thing about owning a Mac is not having to worry about playing video games. Ya got minesweeper and solitare, hell... Pick both!

:roflol:

Vista did/does suck ass though, ya got a point.

[asdf]

I am only in it for the hardware :haha:

[DiscGo]

I am only in it for the hardware :haha:


:haha:

[rockgremlin]

Another cool thing about owning a Mac is not having to worry about playing video games.


:roflol: :roflol: :roflol:



You're right about VISTA X2. Microsuck musta been smokin dope when they dreamed up that OS.

[DiscGo]

ok, I just converted. Summit told me to try Malwarebytes and it just fixed a HUGE issue for me that F-Secure did not find. I had to malicious files loading as viruses and Malwarebytes fixed it.


Thanks again Summit!