Where to turn if you get a computer virus you can't shift

Post by **Gambit37** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 1:07 am

My PC caught a virus over the weekend because my crappy antivirus, Norton, didn't detect it.

I spent most of the weekend trying to fix it based on info I found on the web, but it kept coming back. In the end, I found this forum and the friendly and very helpful people there saved my bacon:

http://www.spybot.info/en/home/index.html

They make excellent spyware detection software and the forums have a dedicated messageboard for helping people remove malware. It takes a couple of days because a helper is assigned to you and they take you through lots of steps, which might involve long scans and downloading and using all sorts of things tailored to your setup -- and because time zones are involved and they are all volunteers, you can't expect instant replies. But after two days, my problem is now completely fixed -- when I had at first thought it was Game Over for my poor PC!

Amazing.

They also have lots of information on how to keep your PC well protected, with recommendations for free stuff you can download.

I've been pretty cocky about not having caught a virus for many many years, being very experienced and all that, but it's not until something goes wrong that you realise how ignorant you really are and how easy it is for some...fucker to... fuck your computer if they want to.

Lock down your machines, update you virus checker, get some spyware monitors. Ditch Norton Anti-Virus if you have it and use a better one: NOD32 or Kaspersky are very recommended. I've switched to the trial of NOD and it's scanning my machine as I write.

Spread the love about Team Spybot. They rock!

ShaggyDowns · Post by **ShaggyDowns** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 2:49 am

Ahh!

I used Norton for many many years and still would get hit with viruses. All that came to a halt however when I switched to a free program called AVG.

http://free.grisoft.com/

This FREE program has been awesome and it uses a crapload less resources then Norton. They also have a spyware program you can download for free as well. Haven't had any troubles since I started using AVG and it's been very very nice! Oh, did I mention it's all FREE??

~SD~

Post by **linflas** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 10:12 am

I use Avast for antivirus/webshield and Spybot for anti-spyware on my XP machine. Windows Defender is also a very good and free anti-spyware.
I never used Norton on my personal machine, will never use it and definitely recommend people NOT to use it (because they won't be able to remove it easily !).

ShaggyDowns · Post by **ShaggyDowns** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 4:42 pm

linflas wrote:I never used Norton on my personal machine, will never use it and definitely recommend people NOT to use it (because they won't be able to remove it easily !).

Very true,

When I decided to give Norton the boot, I was still finding stuff from it spread out throughout my computer. It also is a very bad resource hog compared to a lot of other free programs out there.

~SD~

Post by **Gambit37** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 4:48 pm

I'm currently using the trial of NOD32 and it's memory footprint in taskManager fluctuates between 15-30MB. That still seems quite high to me. Any others better than this?

PadTheMad · Post by **PadTheMad** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 1:51 pm

It's nice to hear you got your problem sorted Gambit - I know how much of a bugger it can be to shift a virus, and you didn't take the easy and often unnecessary reformat option that so many people take.

Norton, and most retail 'protection programs', often do more damage than good, the one thing I learned during my very brief stint in tech support is that you should never use paid programs to protect your computer (unless you need a business licence of course). Everything they do, the free programs do better.

Spybot is excellent, as is AVG that ShaggyDowns uses.

I use Avira AntiVir which hasn't let me down yet and uses less than 10MB when active.

Besides that I use ZoneAlarm firewall, as I like to know what programs are accessing the net and to stop the few people that would leech my connection given half the chance.

Relig · Post by **Relig** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 5:38 am

Spybot is excellent, I also found Spywareblaster also helps out a lot.

Since installing that program I haven't found any new spyware when I run spybot.

It seems to stop spyware programs from even installing, instead of having to remove them all the time with spybot.

It's also a free program but you have to remember to do the dat updates manually on a regular basis.

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

Cheers!

Tom Hatfield · Post by **Tom Hatfield** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 12:56 am

I swear by Kaspersky myself. Small memory footprint (hovers around 15 MB, occasionally goes higher and very often dips lower depending on what it's doing) and is generally rated as one of the best, if not the best, commercial AV software in the world. I'm using Internet Security right now, but I keep the firewall turned off because it doesn't seem to configure properly, and the Spam filter deleted an ultra important non-spam message once, so I disable that, too. But the AV is badical.

ZoneAlarm gave me problems in the past, so when I do have a firewall installed (not really necessary for the last couple years because I've been behind a router), I use Sygate exclusively. Powerful, fast, relatively easy to configure, though it used to give me all kinds of grief. The bugs have more or less been worked out for the last few years.

P.S. The last time I got a virus was before I started using Kaspersky. Took me about an hour to clean manually. Not a big deal, considering. (Then I got hit with another one a week later.) Haven't had a problem since, and it's been several years.

Post by **Gambit37** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 1:24 am

Hey Tom, long time no see! Thanks for the note about Kaspersky, heard good things about them too.

I'm just using the trial of NOD32, so when that expires, I'll try Kaspersky, then make a choice between the two.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:10 am

Funnily, my fiend who recommended Kaspersky (and I am using it, no problems) noticed it left alot of hidden files around the computer as it did its thing, so he switched to another one

Post by **Gambit37** » Tue May 06, 2008 11:34 pm

So my NOD32 trail ran out and I liked it a lot. But I didn't want to buy it before testing another option, so I just replaced it with Kaspersky Trial instead.

What a bloody mistake -- it seems to have completely taken over the machine and has completely slowed down Windows startup to be virtually unusable for a good 5-10 mins after a boot. I was deeply unimpressed by the first time install that went off to download the latest update and took a good ten minutes to find a server that was actually working!

I went through the options and noticed that it's got all sorts of protections switched on by default and lots of far-too-regularly scheduled scans set too.

I'm torn between turning them off for performance but leaving them on for protection.

I'm prepared to give it a go so don't want to right it off yet. Does anyone have a good setup they use that has a good balance between performance and protection?

Post by **Gambit37** » Wed May 07, 2008 1:08 pm

Well, sod that. The damn thing crashed Photoshop while it was in the middle of a batch process -- it popped up a bloody window saying that I'm on day 29 of my evaluation and Do I Want to Purchase?

No, I don't: I just installed you as a trial and I don't need reminding to buy you on the day I installed you!

This is being uninstalled and I'm buying NOD instead. Deeply unimpressed with Kaspersky's attitude and *over*-protective software. There's no point being so protected you can't actually get on and do what you want to do....

ian_scho · Post by **ian_scho** » Wed May 07, 2008 1:17 pm

I sometimes wonder if the most important security component is a firewall, and the virus checker comes in second place.

My favourite blog posting on the theme:
Choosing Anti-Anti-Virus Software

The best post-back (comment) was "Sometimes you have to protect your computer from your own family." I'm paranoid of Sticky-Little-Fingers in my domain.

Post by **Gambit37** » Wed May 07, 2008 1:47 pm

Hey, great article!

I have often wondered about the whole virus checker thing and if it was really necessary with an effective firewall and sensible user actions. But after catching one (that Norton didn't find), I don't want to risk it again, so I've bought NOD now.

It's not as memory efficient as Kaspersky, but it's way less obtrusive which I prefer.

Sabreman · Post by **Sabreman** » Wed May 07, 2008 9:15 pm

I don't know if I've just been plain lucky, but I've had this PC for just under five years and all I've ever used to protect it is AVG antivirus, the Windows firewall, and I do my browsing with Firefox. I've never had a single problem with it. No viruses or spyware, or anything.

It probably helps that I'm very careful about what I click and what I install, and that no-one but me uses the machine, but I do think there's an overly paranoid attitude to the whole thing in the media (and among companies concerned about selling you their protective software).

Octopuss · Post by **Octopuss** » Tue May 13, 2008 6:07 pm

Don't use AVG. NEVER EVER. That's the biggest piece of shit ever. It USED TO be great, but only back in DOS times. Nowadays it's just useless.
Norton is crap as well, mainly cause of the resources it eats and how it grows into the damn system.

NOD32 is the way to go. Fast, extremely reliable, not resources-hungry, it even looks nice and has simple enough interface... and it's CHEAP!!!!
We use it in the company I work in, 1500 something people and it works wonders. I haven't heard about one infection since we moved onto it.