The crisis is over!

[DonandBonnie]

A while back I posted that I was having a problem with my computer that I thought was related to ice on the satellite dish. A couple days after the post I had a complete crash. Turns out that the problem was on my computer, not the satellite dish.

I had Norton Utilities for protection. I thought that all was protected, but I did not realize that the version I had was only an anti-virus program and did not protect against spyware and had no firewall. When the computer repairman checked things out, he found 46 spyware programs on my harddrive that locked the computer up tighter than a drum. The only repair was to reformat my hard drive and reload all of my programs. I only had a part of my data backed up, but he was able to salvage most of it. I only lost a few emails that I was saving and my email address book.

The reason that I am sharing this is to encourage all of you to regularly back up your data and to make sure that you have some sort of computer protection that includes anti-virus, anti-spyware and a firewall. It is also important to keep these programs up to date as the sleezeballs that are trying to ruin your computer are always trying new things. The computer guy sold me a program called McAfee. It contains all three protections, whereas many are sold as three individual programs. The thing I like is that when you do an internet search, the McAfee will monitor each web site and will place a green check behind it if no problems are detected or a red "X" if a problem is found. Click on the red "X" and it will tell you what the potential problem is without opening the web site.

I learned a hard lesson and an expensive one. I hope I can help someone avoid the same mistake that I made. The good news is that I'm now back on line with no problems.

[ols1932]

quote:Originally posted by DonandBonnie

A while back I posted that I was having a problem with my computer that I thought was related to ice on the satellite dish. A couple days after the post I had a complete crash. Turns out that the problem was on my computer, not the satellite dish.

Since we are on the internet a lot, we use Norton Internet Security. But there are a lot of good firewall softwares available. I'm partial to Norton's versions simply because I've had excellent results with them.

Orv

[DonandBonnie]

Orv, My problem was not Norton, it was my ignorance. I thought I had complete coverage and I did not. There are several good programs on the market that will provide good complete coverage, Norton and McAfee are but two. Just don't be like me and buy a program that protects against only one thing and think you are protected against all three.

[ggranch]

While Norton and McAfee have good programs that can and do catch many intruders, there is a program called AdAware that will (on your command) scan and quarantine the spyware that does leak through. It is not a firewall but a clean-up software that you use at your discresion. Bi-weekly or monthly is recommended. Check your local geek store and ask about it. Works for me!

[kegger5769]

I too have McAfee Security Center and use Ad-Aware SE Personal which is available free on the web, I use the both on my 3 personal and 6 business computers and have had no issues to date. I run McAfee Security Center scan weekly and Ad-Aware SE Personal daily, keep things running soothly.

[5rvers]

I also use Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy. Check out this link: http://www.filehippo.com/.

[drhowell]

Virus protection programs are like which pickup you prefer. The free ones seem to do a good job. I have used McAfee and Norton on over 100 school computers (students take them home). The McAfee was more difficult for the students to maintain. The computers routinely came in for service with virus protection out of date and serious hard drive issues. Once we switched to Norton, the problems seemed to diminish. We set up Norton to do a liveupdate and full system scan automatically. I have used Norton System Works for many years and NEVER had a problem. You still need to use common sense when surfing the web. Another thing I have noticed is that McAfee tends to cause computers to run much slower. Just my opinion. The most important thing is that you have some form of protection when online.

[exav8tr]

I have the Norton System with Live update and have it set to do a full system scan every night at 3 am. Works great as long as you renew your subscription each year.

[simonsrf]

I use McAfee now, but have had Norton in the past.

McAfee has done an adequate job, but I prefer the Norton interface that allows you to control how it is used where the McAfee seems to want to do its own thing when it wants......

For spyware, I have used Ad Aware and Spybot, but they did not pickup on all the junk. After installing Webroot spysweeper, everything worked great and all traces of the spyware are gone.

Now, I use FireFox, and have not had a virus or spyware on this computer since changing to this browser.