It occured to me the other day, that most of the guys that come to this forum may not be as computer savy as some of us here are. So I wanted to point out a couple of things that I use to protect myself when I am on the internet from the various nasties to be found out there.

First thing is spyware. This stuff is just BAD. You can get it from porn sites, from gambling sites, from programs like bonzi buddy (you uninstall it and the spyware stays), and more places that you wouldnt think would install this type of stuff. It is most noticeble as a toolbar suddenly loading with your internet browser every time you open it, also as popups every other click you make, changes to your homepage, and changes to whats called your "hosts" table, which tells your computer what site to go to when you type in an address or type an invalid address in and go to a search engine. All of these things happening is a BAD thing. You can get a good program for combating this called Ad-Aware SE, and is free for personal use, and you can update its scan engine for free. A nice thing about this program, is if it DOES interfere with something you like and use that has suspect items in it, you can add it to an ignore list so you can keep your wanted program. It will also allow you to restore your removed items if you screw something up. I have been on the internet since the days of "archie" "gopher" and BEFORE www was even a thought yet, and this is what I use, and you can read about it and download it here:

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

dont forget to right click and pick "select all" with this program after its done scanning, or it wont remove the stuff it finds.


Virus. Trojan Horse. Anyone that buys off the internet live in fear of these words. I have seen virii that will actually burn hardware out, that will not only allow someone to use your computer as if it were their own, but will also TELL them that you are online. I have seen and caught many of these things, and not one was any good for my machine, or its ability to run right. Here is what I use on a weekly basis. I also use a corporate version of Norton Anti-virus just in case i cant get ON the internet to clean my machine, but the link below just seems to catch more things when I use it. It will catch the worst of the spyware, and just about any virus within days of it being released into the internet to do its damage.

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/


You should use both of these once a week, in my opinion, if not more, and keep them updated if you use them. Dialup users will have to wait a few minutes while the anti-virus program downloads and installs, but the ad-aware program is a one download thing, and updates failry quickly for a dialup connection. You can also use ad-aware without being connected to the internet, which does help if you KNOW you have spyware running, and want to get rid of it.

I hope this helps some of you out, and feel free to ask me anything you need help with. Im trying to help you guys out, and I am NOT plugging these two programs for the manufacturers. Try them out if you have symptoms like I described, or even if you dont. you will be amazed at what they pick up.

I didnt see anywhere else to post a thread like this here, so I chose the general forum to post in. I hope you all understand.

Bvamps started something good here. We should advise each other on good (clean) programs. I won't say I'm a computer guru, I started with Win 3.1 on the www about ten years ago. Progressed through the Microsoft OSs up to Win 2000 Pro, but I refuse to get XP as it hasn't proven itself to me yet. As for Outlook, its a big security goof and I don't touch it. Mac has better designed OSs but they are still the far minoirty. I only use them to edit video. Haven't messed with Linux yet. Adaware SE is a good program, I run it frequently and its never done me wrong. Nortons and McAfee are good virus scanners which is an absolute must.

Guys-Ran Bvamps post past my 2nd son,-GOOD STUFF. #2 son was IT admin. for a major college,now same for an aerospace program. Man knows his stuff. If he says Bvamp tells the truth, you can take it to the bank.

Other good stuff AntiVir (free antiviral just websearch anti virus) that is the one that I use. Also Yahoo users can use their free anti spy, I have had good luck with it, it even detected a worm that was slowing my system to a crawl.

Bottom line guys--DON'T f^@# around (on the internet) without PROTECTION!

G O B

Another thing occured to me recently that is worth mentioning, here. When you post your email address on the ineternet, you should not post it like this:

myemail@myemailhost.com

you should always list it with a break in it, or other data that an internet search bot wont see, like:

myemail*NOSPAM*@myemailhost.com

or

my email @ myemailhost. com

and then specify right after that to remove either the *NOSPAM* or the spaces to get the correct email. you will save yourself loads of spam into your email like that. some people know to take the spaces off of it, so using * or $ or % or other odd "letters" will work better for keeping your email safer. safe ER.....not safe, safe ER....

there is a 10 year old trick (well, ive known about it for about ten years, at least) that STILL WORKS on sites like yahoo search and google that will bring up EVERY email from ANY site.....and hence "spam". old trick, simple solution.......

I use both of these and they work great for me. I tryed spybot before i got ad aware. I must say ad aware is sooo much better. spybot doesn't catch nearly as much and it doesn't even work at all sometimes. The first time i used ad aware i was really supprised about how much was on my computer. nortons will find things and won't be able to remove them so i do still have about 7 things that nortons finds and can't remove...i wish nortons would fix this.

the housecall link should be able to get it out of there if its an infection of some kind.....ad-aware will get most everything else....

Spy Sweeper by Webroot....it stops dialers before they are installed. I run it, Adaware and Zone Alarm and it costs me NUTHING

i forgot about zone alarm. good software firewall. better than winblow's packaged firewall. zone alarm will catch just about any dialer or trojan horse even if you do catch it the first time it tries to connect to anything if you have it set on just about any level of security

Bumping this up, as Ive seen a few people say they were having problems with popups on thier computers, as well as some others that said that thier machines lock up on them.

Actually its better to use both Adaware and spybot or even more if you can find good programs. One will catch stuff the other misses and vise versa. I use both and it seems to work well. Also I would like to recomend a free antivirus program called AVG. It seems to be working great for me and its free. Go to download.com and search for it. Zone alarm is a great firewall and a free one

I agree with the adaware/spybot combo, it usually picks it all out. Anything else normally has to be hacked out manually.

I also agree with the AVG Free. It is an awesome Antivirus package at a great price! You can get it directly from the source at www.grisoft.com

Thanks man.....As I told you earlier...all that you had described was happening to my computer.....and hasn't since i downloaded this, and the stomp spyware.....


good looking out Bvamp!!

I would also recomend giving Mozilla Firefox a try as your browser rather than MS Explorer. You will get hardly any pop-ups as most are designed to pop-up with Explorer running. Also Firefox has many useful plug-ins that are free on the Mozilla sight. Keep Explorer too ,as Firefox does not work on some sights. Its also free........

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Spy Sweeper and Zone Alarm... Geez...

Bevamp, you are getting "rusty" with the names of the software if you are confirming that those are worth installing....

You guys were all good with me right up until I saw you say that those were good...

Good post BVamp, an often overlooked part of net surfing and basic computer maintanence.

I use AdAware by Lavasoft, but also run Spybot Search and Destroy for spyware. I run both because they will both catch somethings that the other won't.

Spybot Search and Destroy

As for antivirus I use Norton, but it isn't free, but $60 a year is fine for piece of mind. I also run Panda ActiveScan, it's a free online service you can get through their website here.

http://www.pandasoftware.com/

Just look for a scan your PC now link, or the activeScan link.

If you run Firefox and have not upgraded to the latest version do so......it has some great new features including a built in spell check function that checks on the fly. Lord knows I needed that . ver 2.0.0.3

How about a great free media player....VLC media player. Small program that plays most any media. Thats all I ever use these days.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

yeh, i Know I forgot some, but hell, I wanted other people to chime in.

I'm the admin by trade, not just the admin of this forum (although the word sysadmin as almost equal to a cuss word these days as there are so many people that call themselves that and have no clue “what da hell they are doing”!)

Having said that, my suggestion of the software that every end user should have on their systems is very simple (as it was mentioned in the post above):

TrendMicro Internet Security 2007 - for $50/year you get a license to protect up to 3 computers at home. (You can actually get the same license on ebay for only $18-$20 - just make sure it is for 2007!)

The Trend Micro Housecall (http://housecall.trendmicro.com/) would be a good place to start (if you do not have antivirus installed) to scan your system for treats, but it does not give you the protection like full version of TrendMicro Internet Security. If you use Norton (which I am personally not a fan of as it slows your systems performance by about 25% and is the one that most of the hacks are written for) try using Housecall – chances are it will find quite a few things that Norton simply missed.

“AdAware” and “SpyBot Search and Destroy” were two great pieces of software to use prior to TrendMicro Internet Security 2007 release as this release has almost all the features of those two combined in one package.

Spy Sweeper – well this is almost a spyware in itself!

Zone Alarm – plain sucks! Would not trust this one with guard my dirty laundry!

This is just my take on the subject...

OK, computer guru's. I can't get my Internet Explorer to open. It's affecting my ability to open other pages. I use AOL. I know. They suck but as far as I have seen, they all do. I'm trying to order tickets online. Rush is coming to Raleigh and I'm a MAJOR Neil Peart fan. I've just got to see them. So why doesn't my IE open?

AVAST good free anti virus.

http://www.avast.com/

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ would be a really good place to start. Let it scan trough your system and find all the "bugs" first. Then, do the "Windows Update" thing and see if it helps. If it does not, under optional updates, in the same "Windows Update" there is IE7 available for install. That should fix it. If it does not, then there is something seriously wrong with your box.

I have written virii (for experimental purposes and system security tests) that mcaffee and symantec STILL cant see, even when set all the way to the max on thier settings. mcafee just seems like it IS a virus to me. that is definately one product I have always HATED.

for a firewall? well, zone alarm is SOMETHING you can use, but like max says, it aint all that great.


I wouldnt do a fucking THING on your computer, racegal until you get the issue sorted out. especially any credit card info or bank statement inquiries.

I've tried this 3 times (the link). Guess how many times I've been bumped offline? You got it. I called TWC, my ISP. They say it's not them. I've only had this puter about 2-3 months. This is bullshit.

Um, did you happen to do a "scheduled" Micro$oft software upgrade with your anti-virus program running?

I know that borked Outhouse Express on me once.

Only thing I can think of trying to do is try to open Internet Explorer using the computer's "Run" command. If it doesn't work that way, I think you can just re-install Internet Explorer using your original Windows CD.

Go ahead and "Roll them Bones."

I reinstalled IE7 and it works fine now. I still can't open alot of windows through AOL but I can through IE. That's all I was really worried about. I'll still work on my AOL problem but I got what I really needed. I'll probably try to reinstall it too. Can't do it online but I've got a CD.

Having the original Windows CD handy for quick reinstalls can cure many a problem you happen to run into running Micro$oft products.

Besides, you're probably not missing much not being able to open those AOL windows.

They're probably just telling you they are dissapointed in you for accessing a forum called Saiga-12.com using their network .

any machine Ive installed aol onto destabilsed. it is some shitty fucking software, I gotta tell ya. I had a win98 machine that never locked up, even after having two weeks of uninterrupted up-time, and installed it on there to go get something I needed (a driver I think it was), and the machine was never the same again.

House call is good if you have a high-speed connection, dial-up (AOL) is not a good choice for that...

Download Trend Micro Internet Security 2007 Trail - it is fully functional product, free for 30 days. After you install it, it will download and install the scan engine and virus definitions updates. After that do a FULL SCAN of your PC.

Thanks Max. I got Housecall to run. Didn't fix the problem with AOL. I did manage to get AOL fixed without reinstalling. Not sure what I did. But that's the way it usually works for me. I have fixed every problem I've had with my computer but as usual, I have no idea exactly what I did. Just trial and error. Thanks guys for all your help.

Something else I found that may be of interest.

http://testmy.net/

Not sure if that will show as a hyperlink. If not, just type testmy.net. It will tell you how fast your connection speed is.

Racegal.
Your hyperlink worked and the program also worked and beautifully.

Many thanks!

I use Ad-Aware, SpySweeper, Window Washer and avast! Anti-Virus. Work quite qell as a sort of anti-spyware/anti-virus 'cocktail'.

i use avg free anti virus just search it on google

If you don't play Windows games, Linux is now a viable alternative to Windows. (Windows game compatibility is coming along, but isn't there yet)

Its license allows it to be freely used (no authorization or piracy checks involved).

There are no known viruses or trojans or malware for it.

Every program you use in Windows is available in linux (aside from the Windows games). You can find a list that matches them here: http://www.linuxrsp.ru/win-lin-soft/table-eng.html and here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WhatWindowsUsersWant

Games? Oh yeah, there are lots of games that run under Linux. The game company that makes Quake releases linux versions and so do some other companies. There are also may games written expressly for linux (no, not just solitaire )

Now for the evil truth (or "why i use linux instead of windows")

I've used linux (or some other unix type OS) since 2000. I just got tired of windows and all the crap.

I personally feel that spending 10% of my time keeping up with firewall, antivirus, antimalware, etc and between 15% and 30% of my computers available power running those programs is a waste.

Did you know that if you run XP or Vista, Microsoft controls your computer? Every day your computer 'phones home', reports its information and the Microsoft server gives it the "Okay" to continue running for another day. It's called "Windows Genuine Advantage" (but it's not). What happens when the server goes down, and your computer can't reach it on the daily call? Why, your computer stops running in the way you are familiar with.

Do you really want an operating system on your computer that depends on a large corporation saying how long you can use it?

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showAr...cleID=201802447

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&saf...amp;btnG=Search

Viruses are known to exist for Linux, but mostly they exist in laboratory environments as "proof of concept". Linux uses a 'limited user' arrangement, where no user has all the privileges. The linux user can gain privileges temporarily to install programs or perform other system maintenance, when necessary. Windows installs in such a way that everyone has "superuser" privileges all the time. This allows malware to take advantage of Windows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_computer_viruses

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&saf...amp;btnG=Search


Oh, here's a final lovely thought: Do you folks who use Windows like having your activities monitored and catalogued by Microsoft? Your machine is uniquely identified by the network card chip or CPU ID in it. Microsoft catalogues all sorts of data from your computer and stores them against this number.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Forget-abou...oft-58752.shtml

Linux doesn't 'phone home' at all, w/o your knowledge. None of your information is tracked (unless you allow it).

Ubuntu won't make you jettison Windows immediately. The installer allows you to have a "dual boot" system. What this means is that you can choose Windows or Linux when you start your computer. I dual booted windows and linux from 1997 and finally I'd figured out enough of linux to dump windows. Todays Linux is much more user friendly than it was 10 years ago, and many more programs exist for it.

http://www.ubuntu.com Linux for human beings.

What nalioth says is the Truth, I usually run windos xp on the pc Because of the wife, but if not
just plain Linux on the box, by the way give your self a favor and if you have to use windows
drop vista and get a copy of XP and drop explora for good, get at list Firefox http://en-us.www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/
or opera http://www.opera.com/products/desktop/ or get both life is a lot better after you do that.

So Linux is less vulnerable to viruses/spyware/adware and all that other fun stuff? Sounds great. I might have to check into it. I've never used anything besides Windows .

So long as you don't log in with the superuser account, I'd say the chances of being bothered by malware would be around .01% on linux (or Apple OSX)

Damn, that's awesome.

Yes! I use AVG free for several machines with good results. It is updated almost every day. I like Tread Housecall as well, but the on-line version will not protect you, it will simply find out if you are infected. The free download is time limited.

I also use Adaware and have had very good luck with it. But I also highly recommend AVG AntiSpyware, it is available as a free version as well and works quite well.

I also recommend free download CCleaner. It will pull a huge amount of crud off your system and also has a good registry cleaner.

Google will find any of this software, and remember, you can run more then one antispyware but only one antivirus. The exception being trend Housecall on-line, in conjunction with an installed antivirus program.

I have had great luck with all of this software on dozens and dozens of machines.

just an FYI - the unofficial reason linux has almost no virii, is because that is what the coders use to write them with 95% of the time

glad to see this thread is alive still.

keep it real guys, and stay cool! we are all in this together, after all.......

Ditto - I've used it for about 5 years now without a hitch. I may actually break down and buy a licensed version one of these days - to show appreciation!
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/special-get-isw-tpay/us/frt/0

I think this actually may be my first post on the forum (even though I have been a lurker here for some time), but I had to post in this thread.
I am a Network Infrastructure Technician / Network Security Administrator for the USAF (active), and have been into computer and networking since the DOS days. We provide network access to almost every government agency at some point. The AF has sent me to just about every networking and network security training available, and I try to share that knowledge whenever possible. I am open to any computer/networking questions anyone on the forum may have. Just msg me and I will provide email addy.
To get to the point of this thread, I see alot of good advice here.....and some not so good. I'm not claiming to be the burning bush of knowledge, but I refuse to put anything with Norton, McAfee, or AOL on any of my computers. Norton and McAfee are such big memory hogs that they would slow even the fastest computer, not to mention they haven't been even in the top 5 in detection tests done by the DOD. (Even though alot of the military still uses a heavily modified version of it, for now). Don't even get me started on AOL!

Let me break down what I run on all my windows computers:

ANTIVIRUS: AntiVir Free Edition- Equal or better in detection to AVG, but far surpasses it in memory usage. I stopped using AVG with the ver 8 update due to the memory leaks and massive hit on system resources. (Avast is also very good)

BROWSER: Firefox- not as fast as opera, but I like the security and plugins avail.; stopped using IE years ago and will never go back. Think about it. Virii are programmed to affect the most people possible. What do you think most people use to access the internet? There has been a major improvement with IE7, but still not enough to convince me (Opera is very good alternative to Firefox...and faster)

SPYWARE: AdAware free edition/Spybot - as was previously mentioned, use both for the best protection. I also recommend Ccleaner for general system cleanup.

Those 4 pieces of software alone will correct 90% of most people's problems.


For general users, Nalioth hit the nail on the head by recommending linux, and yes, what he is saying about Windows is true. The best advice i could give a basic user (someone who just uses computer for internet email, and office documents, definitely try linux. You will have no more virus, pop-up, spyware issues, (and no more defragging!).

I've used AVG for years with good results along with Comodo's Personal Firewall (free and much better than ZoneAlarm).

Comodo recently combined their Firewall and their AntiVirus, now called Comodo Internet Security. I've switched several of my PC's over to this application and I'm very pleased with it. It's also free for personal use.

http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/index.html

I tried a new Anti-Spyware program the other to get rid of a nasty bit of spyware (Really Malware) that Spybot would find but not remove. It was MalwareBytes. I am very dubious of new anti-spyware but this stuff has really impressed me with the 15-20 machines I have tried it on!

It is a free download and will work in manual mode if you decide not to upgrade to the paid version.

I suggest that you try it!