anybody had quick defrag malware show up on their computer?

[muttmeister]

I let difficult child's brother in law use my computer last night. Now I have this malware/virus. I have Macafee protection but it didn't catch it so I'm trying to get rid of it. Anybody have any knowledge about this?

 

[HaoZi]

McAfee and Norton aren't that great. You may have to also try uninstall and/or your restore feature. AVG is pretty good, even the free version (though the paid version is better). Try Ad-Aware on top of AVG (also free).

 

[runawaybunny]

If it's running windows I suggest installing Microsoft Security Essentials. It's free, fast and easy to install and works great. Also make sure to uninstall McAfee because running 2 anti virus programs at once can cause problems. Use security essentials to run a complete scan on your computer and let it delete all the problem files. Hopefully that will fix the problem for you.

I'm not a fan of McAfee or Norton. Have used both and didn't like either one. NOD32 is a very good program but it costs $ and is more complicated to install and configure.

I've never used AVG so I have no comment on it.

 

[donna723]

McAfee isn't good and Norton is almost useless even though it comes already installed on most new computers. I've used the free version of AVG and it's very good, but it does have it's drawbacks. You might try downloading it and see if it takes care of your problem but get rid of the McAfee first. The problem with the free version of AVG is that you have to actually get in to the computer and run a scan to get rid of something. My old desktop caught a nasty virus that would not allow the computer be booted up so I couldn't get in to run a scan to get rid of the virus. The whole hard drive had to wiped clean and all the software reloaded and I lost a ton of pictures. The paid version of AVG runs all the time and would have intercepted the virus when it hit and taken care of it. I bought it in Walmart for about $40 and loaded it, and so far so good. The license is good for two years so the price wasn't really too bad.

 

[Mamaof5]

I agree about McAfee and Norton. Don't agree with the suggestion of AVG - just as bad in the crud department. Avast! home edition. Free and no pay for subscriptions though renewals every 2 years, they send an email reminder for it. Two other things, depending on operating system (Vista hates one of my suggestions and comes up lagging with it, win7 and XP are fine though) Spyware Terminator and Spybot S&D - both free as well and full version freeware\open source.

Run all three is safe mode, do a boot time scan with Avast! and you should be easy peasy road to virus free.

 

[HaoZi]

I've tried Avast and Spybot, and I hated them both so much I uninstalled them within 24 hours. ZoneAlarm didn't last 20 minutes with me before I ripped it out of my system. I've heard good things about Avast, I just personally don't like it and it clashed with my Ad-Aware something fierce.

 

[flutterby]

Comodo Security Suite - free and award winning. Avast and AVG both messed up my old computer. McAfee and Norton are horrible.

And Spybot S&D (Search & Destroy). Have used that for years and years. It's free, too.

 

[nvts]

Malware is ultimately "stabilized" my computer this past week. Picked up and cleaned off over 380 pieces of adware on my drive. What a nightmare!

Beth

 

[DammitJanet]

I have Microsoft Security Essentials and Comodo. I also have malware bites to run if I think something got through.

 

[bby31288]

Quick question is Microsoft Security Essentials also anti-virus, or just Malware protection? I was confused how it would conflict with the Norton.

 

[Hound dog]

Love, love, LOVE Commodo! And it's free. Updates constantly. Not had a single thing slip past it yet. *knocks on wood*

Norton and McAfee aren't any good anymore. They don't update often enough to keep up with the amount of viruses and spyware that are popping up all the time. I found out the hard way. It cost me a hard drive. Never been so ticked off in my life.

 

[runawaybunny]

Quick question is Microsoft Security Essentials also anti-virus, or just Malware protection? I was confused how it would conflict with the Norton.

I'm not an expert by any means but to my knowledge Microsoft Security Essentials does anti virus and everything else. When I set up my system up a year or so ago conventional wisdom was to only use 1 anti virus program to avoid conflicts between them. Technology changes so fast that it may now be fine to run multiple anti virus programs. I'm not 100% sure about that.

For years I used NOD32 for viruses and AdAware and both SpyBot for adware and malware. Then I got a nasty root kit virus that created major problems... blech.

The only anti virus/adware/malware program running on my computer for the last year of so is Microsoft Security Essentials. It worked really well on xp and then on win 7. So far no problems at all (knock on wood.)

Your mileage may vary.

 

[flutterby]

Generally speaking, you shouldn't run more than one anti-virus program at a time.

 

[muttmeister]

My computer genius difficult child 1 will be here this week to remove the virus and reformat my computer. According to what I read about this one, it doesn't do much REAL long-term damage; I think everything will be salvagable. It's more of an annoyance. It has constant pop ups that tell you your hard drive is missing, windows cant find disk space, etc. but they are all bogus. Then a defrag program pops up telling you you have all of these errors and they want you to send them money (credit card info) to "fix" it.
I can get on the internet OK but I can't access anything in my documents folder. However, if I go for them through the back door they are still there and useable. It also shuts down the computer about every 10 minutes so I can't do a full virus scan to try to find it. I hope he comes soon; I'm trying to use this as little as possible. I guess it will all end up OK.