I have over five years experience as a certifed anti virus, and virus recovery expert. If any of you are having problems with viruses, and or spyware (mass popups and a damn slow computer) post it here and I can post a resolution for you.

I can also help with most problems with any McAfee software. Note: if you have VirusScan 7, DO NOT UPGRADE, update your VirusScan manually, its worth staying with a product that works as opposed to VirusScan 8 or 9.

AWww I was hoping this was about an alternative to Acyclovir *snicker*

And I was thinking it was going to include a big red flashing "USE LINUX" sign

But to be honest raan - I have used both mcafee 7 & 9 (two different computers) and both of them have done a fairly decent job at keeping the system clean. In fact, the computer with 9 on it has been doing better because its the one I let my family use and they are about as computer illiterate as you can get.

I got Microsoft's antispyware program, its in beta version but its free.

Its amazing.

Good band, great music.

How about a horrendously slow internet? It's a college line, but dial up was faster that it goes right now. *kick internet*

What is Virus....me run FC3 virus not know FC3.....

On a side note, you know what fixes ANY problem on a unix based system? UMOUNT

Try it on your nearest crapOSX

Yeah, and don't run AdAware, although it's not viruses, it's related.

Seriously, don't do it. :/

Also, is Panda any good for viruses? I keep being badgered to convert to them from eZ and Norton (I TELL my mum not to use Norton, owing to the last time it totally killed our PC because it didn't want to be uninstalled, but as you can see from the other thread...parents + computers = NO )

I've been using Grisoft's AVG Free Edition for about a year now and no problems. I also use AdAware and Spybot Search and Destroy.

AVG is great. Get the business version trial use it unistall it then do the same later. Its fast able to pick up alot of virus' and you can shut down the computer start it up later and continue an old scan!!
Its great

you guys put hackers and virus makers out of business...id be angry if i was one

Don't hackers get paid upwards of £50,000 if they can crack a bank and tell them how they did it? I imagine it's similar for these sorts of companies, hrm.

Me too. I definitely recommend everyone who has xp gets this. Using this in combination with Spywareblaster (disables all that activex crap, also free) and using a browser other than IE (I sort of alternate between netscape and mozilla), I have been completely safe from any of the filthy adware/spyware/trojans blah blah that are invading the internet these days.

Ahem.


*loves on Mac*

I may not get to play all the best games, or have to wait half a year to play them (*coughSims2cough*), but at least I don't have to worry about spyware and all that crap.

Ooooh, thanks for reminding me about Netscape Fain - i've been meaning to give the latest version a test run ever since I saw the screenshots and with everything that's been going on in my life I forgot all about it.

Now to stay on topic, here is my current list of "most used security type applications" for windows.

- Kerio Personal Firewall (in my opinion this is simply one of the best software based firewalls you can get your hands on for the Windows platform - and anyone who trusts in the integrated windows firewall is just asking for their computer to go splat)
- AdAware
- Spybot Search and Destroy
- Spyware Blaster
- BHODemon
- CWShredder
- HijackThis
- Nod32 standalone virus scanner (you can download for free from the Edskes file mirror - if you are using an older version of windows grab the mcafee one instead which is comandline based and is that much cooler for it)
- the WinXP anti-spyware tool
- Trojan Defense Suite 3 (its made by an Australian company and as such I feel much for them, even if they weren't the acknowledged top product in the field)
- Any decent virus scanner, wether it be McAfee, Norton (yes this point is debatable but it really does depend on the person to wether its any good), AVG, Nod32 or any other in the field.
- RegLite (its a 3rd party registry editor - essential if you need to dig around in your registry for nasties as the one that comes with windows is fairly deficient)

Some people say I go overboard on the security measures - but then all I have to do is point out how my home computer never has a problem I haven't been able to fix and is still working at full 100% capacity without reaching its half-life after the many years ive had it.

VS10 is supposed to be dropping the whole active x base. Thank hell. Panda is pretty good. The problem with VS9 is if you get a hijacker, it will change the Security Center to a spyware search page.

And the fact that with VS7 you have a 70% probablility of removing a virus from a windows 2000/xp system, and with vs9 you have about a 20% chance.

Panda is supposed to be pretty good. AdAware is awsome, Im not sure why Shiri thinks otherwise. Windows AntiSpyware is my current favorite by fare though.

I think otherwise because every time I've run it it's either spazzed out when it came to cleanup time (it was that damn LOP thing, got the uninstaller later on) or just not found things that other scanners have, which is really poor considering THEY got everything IT missed.

As for spybot, it didn't want to coexist with adaware and committed harakiri all over my computer and I don't really know how to clear it up properly *peer* so I'm not too enamoured with that either.

That spybot thing is just a warning that there were problems in the past - as far as I can tell (and I have used both coexisting at the same time for years) there isn't a problem anymore between the latter versions.

And even though AdAware and Spybot are in the same field, they both pick up things the other misses - which is why I use both and not just Spybot.

Yeh. Stay far away from that WinXP personal firewall. If you want a free one, download ZoneAlarm's free one. Also, down with IE! I only use it with the pages I absolutely have to (and thank goodness those are getting fewer and fewer). Go with Firefox.

Actually timsae, the best option might be to try the new Netscape browser - it automatically renders everything in firefox but for those that display incorrectly, it has a nifty little option to render it in internet explorer. Thats pretty much the main advantage it has over IE and Firefox at the moment - built in dual rendering and easy switching between the two. I don't know if it has the ability to use the Firefox plugins, though I am hoping it will because without some of my plugins there is no way in the world I would switch.