Getting rid of a virus etc.?

Question

If you are convinced that you have some sort of virus, trojan or whatever but do not know what it is or its name, which program would you recommend to get rid of it? Would a free one do the job? (I've just forked out on two registry cleaners which didn't help so would prefer not to have to pay anymore if possible. I do have Mcafee Total Projection on the pc. If if use your recomended reemoval program, can i leave McAfee in place while I use the program you recommend? Please use layman's language . Thanks. (I'm on xp )

Answer 1

If you suspect you have been infected with some kind of malware, there are several steps you must take. Unfortunately, if you find one infection, it is highly likely you have another one. A virus, trojan or worm are all different types of infections/malware.



First, clean up (delete) your cookies, temp files and temporary internet files. I prefer to use Ccleaner (available at www.filehippo.com) to do this, rather than the built-in DISK CLEANUP. If you want to use Disk Cleanup, you can find it if you:

- Double-Click on My Computer to open it up

- RIGHT-click on your C: drive

- Choose PROPERTIES and then click on the DISK CLEANUP button

- When done, reboot your computer.

Delete these files daily or run Ccleaner every day right before you shut your computer down.



2 - You should also have a good anti-virus program to help protect your computer. AVG FREE is an excellent anti-virus program, which can be downloaded from www.download.com.



3 -Since NONE of the anti-spyware/anti-adware programs are 100% accurate in finding and removing spyware, you need at least two programs which you will run one after the other, not at the same time.

There are three excellent free ones:

--Spybot, Search and Destroy

--Ad-Aware

--Spyware Blaster

All are available FREE from www.download.com



You will need to download, install, update (and IMMUNIZE in Spybot) and run them, one at a time. Be careful with the NAME of these programs - there are "look-alikes" with very similar names, that are in fact spyware themselves! Reboot after you install each one!



After this current infection is cleared up, be sure to run both of the above programs at least once a week if you are on the internet frequently and/or like to download music or files.



NOTE: Some infections prevent your from downloading the above programs. You may have to use a clean computer to download the programs and copy them to a thumb drive or CD. Then transfer the install files to the infected computer and run.



--Occasionally you will not be able to run these programs without being in SAFE MODE. To get there, reboot your computer and tap the F8 key, repeatedly until a menu comes up. You want to choose SAFE MODE WITH NETWORKING.



4 -You should also have a good firewall to help protect your computer. Zone Alarm makes a totally free version (watch you don't download the 30-day free trial of the paid version). You can download this from the manufacturer at www.zonelabs.com



HTH : )

Good luck!

Answer 2

2

Answer 3

First of all, stop mucking around in the registry. Why did you get TWO registry programs anyway? When you don't know much about computers, the last thing you want to do is use a registry cleaner. That being said, Avast is a free antivirus program. You can download it here:

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html



McAfee is crap. It doesn't catch as much as some of the free programs out there. If you can turn it off, do that when you do a scan with Avast. You can always turn it on later.

Answer 4

Yes a free one should work just fine and not damage mcafee in any way. Just google free spyware remover. Also, the best way to get rid of a spyware is to go into safe mode, and set your computer back to a date before you had the virus. I would try that before I messed around with any spyware downloads. Hope this helped you.

Answer 5

AOL spyware protection is free. You can go on the website by typing in on google: aol spyware protection. When you have installed it, you can run a full computer scan. This will take a few hours. Once it is done, it will list all the viruses, tracking cookies and trojans it has detected, even where it cam from. Once you highlight the virus/trojan/cookie, you click on remove.

Answer 6

Update your anti-virus, remember to only have one anti-virus installed on your PC

http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html [Free, if you do not have one]



Download SuperAntiSpyware

http://www.superantispyware.com/superantispywarefreevspro.html [free home edition]



Restart your PC in safe mode, and run a full scan with both.

http://www.pchell.com/support/safemode.shtml



While in safe mode, you may also want to have a look at your start up items by using msconfig.

http://www.netsquirrel.com/msconfig/



Be careful with the items you uncheck, you can have a look here to see if they are necessary

http://www.greatis.com/appdata/index.html



You should also have a look at your IE Add-ons while in safe mode.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/web/sp2_addonmanager.mspx

Disable any you do not use.



After you reboot back to normal mode, download and install ccleaner to fix any registry problems and clean up old temp files.

http://www.ccleaner.com [Free]

Answer 7

that's incredibly considerable which you have antivirus for this good reason. Get AVG (that's loose) and issues like this would possibly not take place anymore. in simple terms verify you install AVG once you have bumped off the malware.

Answer 8

I use AVG Free Edition ( http://free.avg.com/ ), and SpyBot: Search And Destroy( http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html ) (Both of which are free...) which i find to work quite well for removing Virus's and Spyware.

Answer 9

Eset nod32 anti virus

king of all anti virus

Answer 10

Go here and use Trend Micro's Free online scanner it will not affect any other one you have on your PC right now > http://housecall.trendmicro.com/