Computer Help!!

[wxman1]

I will disagree with this and I am an IT person. I use AVG on my laptop which I hardly ever use but the main PC in my house is running Norton 2009 and over the years has saved my butt from having to reinstall my OS probably. You just have to set it up right so it's not a hog and completely anal with everything you do but once you have it setup just right at least me personally I think it's fine and probably more up to date and effective with virus detection and removal than some of the free ones out there.

Norton isn't bad it just got a bad reputation for being so heavy and bogging down a lot of peoples pc's so I got tired of dealing with it. I use ESET NOD 32 on my laptop, I have never had any problems with it and it is very light. I also use CCleaner and SPYBOT as well everything else that Vista comes with.

 

[isucyfan]

Norton isn't bad it just got a bad reputation for being so heavy and bogging down a lot of peoples pc's so I got tired of dealing with it.

Norton is notoriously a huge resource hog, but I'm told they fixed that problem in the 2009 version, and that it's actually quite good.

I am also in the camp that there is no need to pay for any AV software, though.

 

[TykeClone]

I usually start with a hijackthis log, and work from there.

HiJackThis is a great tool - but something to be careful with. It makes it fairly easy to remove registry keys that might actually be important while you're cleaning out the bad things.

If you don't know what you're doing, I'd stay away from HiJackThis.

 

[jumbopackage]

Help me out here, why is mozilla firefox better than IE. I have that browser on my pc but explaining to the wife why to use it is difficult

Internet Explorer Unsafe for 284 Days in 2006 - Security Fix

I know it's a couple of years old, but it's stuff like that that got me away from IE. IE 7 had 6 "critical" exploits last year. That's the sort of thing that will take over your computer.

Firefox certainly isn't perfect either, but I've found over the years that your odds are a lot better, overall.

Firefox wont protect a user from clicking yes when a "free" app installs bogus crap. Starts with the user. Firefox is a preference and not an end all solution, just remember that. I use both IE and firefox and love things about both.

I can think of absolutely nothing that IE does that I like better than Firefox. And there is nothing that will stop anyone from doing something that abundantly stupid, other than education. The only reason I EVER launch IE is to go to sites that aren't properly coded.

 

[jumbopackage]

HiJackThis is a great tool - but something to be careful with. It makes it fairly easy to remove registry keys that might actually be important while you're cleaning out the bad things.

If you don't know what you're doing, I'd stay away from HiJackThis.

I use it more to diagnose than to clean. Most malware these days have a "TSR" application that replaces the registry entries on shutdown or when it notices they are gone.

If I see a "clean" hijackthis log, I know that there isn't anything TOO horrible going on.

 

[bos]

Internet Explorer Unsafe for 284 Days in 2006 - Security Fix

I know it's a couple of years old, but it's stuff like that that got me away from IE. IE 7 had 6 "critical" exploits last year. That's the sort of thing that will take over your computer.

Firefox certainly isn't perfect either, but I've found over the years that your odds are a lot better, overall.



I can think of absolutely nothing that IE does that I like better than Firefox. And there is nothing that will stop anyone from doing something that abundantly stupid, other than education. The only reason I EVER launch IE is to go to sites that aren't properly coded.

Ha ha, just wait until Firefox dominates the browser market. they will be the next big hit for hackers. Whoever is in the lead will always get the spotlight. Like you said education will always be the best bet.