Can you tell me what in the hell hit my computer?

Be very wary of anything that pops up on your computer, whether it’s an ad or a warning message. Often the most obvious response (clicking “X” or “OK” or “close”) is exactly what allows your computer to become infected with a virus. Use a popup blocker (although these are not 100% effective). If you do have an unexpected popup, right-click on the window and force it to close. If that doesn’t work, open your Task Manager (right click on the task bar, select Task Manager), then under Applications select the offending popup and click End Task. That should keep you pretty safe.

There is a program I recommend people download, it is relatively simple to use. It is called Spybot Search and Destroy. When you get crazy junk on your computer, you can go into safe mode, then run it, usually cleans it up. You should be able to find it here:

http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html

I just had a virus and had to pay the Geek Squad to clean it up, which also included them installing Norton Anti Virus software. The guy told me that sometimes what happens is you get a pop up that says “your computer is infected with a virus.” Then it will say something about anti-virus scanning and ask for a credit card number to do the scan. He said that’s just a scam to get you to put in your credit card number. He said those things look like legit sites but are not.

Someone told me if you get a pop up, just hit control alt-delete and shut the whole thing down that way.

Thanks, guys…I think I have spy bot, and I know I have Norton, but I’ll double check. Thanks for the tips.

Remember to update the software regularly on spy bot and such. I went an embarrassingly long time without doing that, because I didn’t know I had to.

I has to pay for it…. : (

I hate to tell people this, but spybot is free. I have to fix all of my friends and family computers because they know I worked in IT.

I have never had a problem Spybot couldn’t fix if I ran it multiple times in safe mode. I have never been able to use the norton and crazy anti-virus software people pay for to fix their problems for them.

I sincerely doubt you are out of the woods….I just paid Geek squad to clean out a nasty virus….28 to be exact and they couldn’t remove this one virus and had to reinstall Windows.l thought a simple restore date saved my ass and found out the hard way it is not that easy. DO backup all vital data including bookmarks and e-mail addresses while you still can.

In my opinion, Norton is one of the worst anti-virus programs around – it’s a serious memory hog, and doesn’t catch much. You’d be much better off with Windows Security Essentials (which is free). Another excellent free tool is Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware. If you’re worried that anything on your computer is infected, just scan it with this tool.

@dappled_leaves Where have you been? 6 or 7 years ago norton was a memory hog and slow. Since 2009 edition it has been much improved – has a smaller memory foot print than WSE, runs a full scan quicker with less CPU and catches more malware than most other programs. I’m still not going to pay for it because WSE is OK but don’t try to palm people off with out of date info.

There are many, many, many possibilities here. I mean, malware is pretty damn common, and there are quite a few that could have done this.

My recommendations…

1) Make sure you have something like Spybot running. An on-demand scanner isn’t enough; you need real-time protection, and Spybot offers it for free whereas Malwarebytes requires payment for that sort of protection; the free version os on-demand only.

2) Get a decent antivirus program. Avira rates pretty damn high while Norton doesn’t (though it is better than past versions), McAfee doesn’t, and AVG is a joke.

@Lightlyseared, I’ve been far from Norton for a couple of years, having been burned by them in the past. If they’ve improved, then I stand corrected.

@dappled_leaves @Lightlyseared While they have improved, I personally don’t use them based on reviews from AV-Comparatives. Note the detection rates;
Avira – 97.5%; Advanced+
Avast – 98.4% but subject to enough false positives to knock it from Advanced+ to Advanced
AVG – 91.4% and slow enough to rate merely Standard.
McAfee – 96.8% with no false positives; Advanced+ and an improvement over past versions, but still a bit below Avira.
Norton – 95.5% and merely Advanced; not bad, but when a free product can beat it, is it worth the money?

Since this is in Social section…

I must confess, it was me! Muahahaha!

P.S. Norton gives me explosive diarrhea. I have been using AVG Free for a couple years but it’s been annoying lately ..and seems like it’s slowing my PC down.

Yeah, well @Plucky..you thought you had me out-puzzled but you DIDN’T! I WINNED! Thanks to Lilly!