So it looks like all that hentai, er, literature that I downloaded from 4chan the other week brought some unwanted visitors along for the ride, as it seems to be only my posts that load up the RSS feed with spam. I’ve run my antiquated Symantec Antivirus and come up clean, but that thing’s a few years old and can’t be updated or removed due to the fact that my computer’s a freebie leftover from the office and our IT guy forgot the uninstall password.
Any recommendations for a handy virus/spyware/nastiness-removal tool I can buy online and download, and that will run without being upset that Symantec’s sitting on the drive as well? Cheaper is better; I’m likely to be replacing this machine with a pair of refurbished Mac iBooks in the very near future.
I started using AVG-Free while I still had Norton on my machine. BTW, search online for a removal tool. Just Google “remove Symantec antivirus” and you’ll probably get a bunch of hits. That’s how I found the tool to dump Norton.
I don’t know about an infection stemming from an RSS feed, because I refuse to use those aggregators for your exact reason. I just Google whenever I want to find something related to an article I’m writing.
I do know that if your antivirus is more than a few days un-updated, you are quite vulnerable to an attack.
My basic protection package is: Windows firewall, AVG-Free antivirus, WinPatrol (running processes watchdog) and Spybot Search and Destroy (with Tea Timer full-time protection running).
ALL of those are free, and all work with older O/Ss.
You might also research your ISP to see if they are on any craplists for being loose about customers getting attacked.
An excellent free tool is Malware Bytes Anti-Malware software. It can be run in safe mode for those really tough infestations. You can google it for the home page or go to C-Net downloads to get it. I enjoy your posts!
Symantec is the devil.
If you can’t get AVG to load, consider nuking the machine with an x-ubuntu ( low power PC Ubuntu distro ) and using a real OS.
I’m trying ’em all. Thanks very much for all the tips.
Started with Malware; it came up with a clean report. on to AVG….
AVG gave a clean report, too….
Kristopher, I’ve thought about going to Linux (I had some very limited experience as a junior sub-assistant Unix sysop), but at this point I’ll probably just switch to Macs for the full Unix treatment. I will have this Intel machine sitting around, though, so maybe….
I’d say either Microsoft security essentials or ESET Nod32
Well, well — Spybot found 150 problem files.
Also get C Cleaner, formerly known as Crap Cleaner. It now comes with a Registry Cleaner to clean up your Windows Registry, the weak link in Windows O/Ss. The Registry is the file volume of Windows operating files, or .dll files. When you remove anything, a .dll file, unattached now to it’s program, gets left behind, and slows down the operation of the O/S. The Registry cleaners remove them.
C Cleaner is a small program which works REALLY fast.
After you do a cleaning, do a Defrag. You can get Defraggler, a free program, or use the one already in Wiundows, at All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Defragmenter
Microsoft security essentials finds lots of things.
I also like the real-time monitoring and SpyNet reporting.
Disclaimer: I worked on some of the components in security essentials.
Someone up above said any anti-crap software more than a few days out of date is vulnerable. In my experience, it can be hours. Very recently I ran the update for my anti-virus software and less than four hours later had my PC practically bricked by a very nasty bug.
Said bug came via news aggregator.
I use Ad-Aware in conjunction with Spybot Search & Destroy with some success. Both are available for free.