Future Tech Systems

We’ve been seeing a spike in the number of virus and spyware infections on computers recently, and wanted to discuss this a bit.

One that we have seen a lot of lately is “Personal Antivirus 2009″.  It is removable.  It is also difficult, relatively speaking, to remove.

So how did you get it?  Well, mainly people get it by clicking on bogus popup ads that look like windows error messages.  What makes this program more sinister is it is a full fledged application designed to look like many common pieces of antivirus and antispyware software.  It comes up with popup messages constantly saying things like “Detected 209 viruses” and various phony viruses it has detected on your computer.

While I have yet to find one product that cures absolutely everything, I have found a few good tricks that you can use to keep your computer in top shape.

You should be running some type of commercial virus scanning software, and some type of spyware/adware scanner and remover.

I will list a few products that I like, as well as some that I dislike, and why.  Many people are not big fans of antivirus software because it can interfere with your normal use, which I certainly understand.  However, you can’t just go without antivirus software on your computer just because it slows it down a little bit.  Every piece of software that stays running all the time on your computer will slow it down a bit, so you have to pick and choose.

I like the corporate versions of Norton Antivirus, like Norton Client Security.  I use this at my corporate clients, but for home users its cost prohibitive.  What I like about it is that as antivirus software goes, it is reasonably quick… with one exception being that if you schedule regular scans, and your end users computer happens to be off at the time, it will run as soon as they boot up their PC.  Generally, at 9:00 am Monday morning when they are already late, and trying to get their day/week started.  But back to what I like – the server where you put the admin piece downloads the LiveUpdate virus definitions for you regularly, and makes the client PCs install them.  You can monitor errors and who is and isn’t in compliance.  It is also tough for an end user to disable, which is what you want.

I like Spyware Doctor free edition, which you can usually get from download.com, but from time to time its only available as a free trial package.  That’s the part I don’t like.  Also, on my corporate clients, sometimes it doesn’t get along with Symantec Client Security, and it will constantly have a little play button icon saying “Starting Spyware Doctor” and generally slowing things down.  Generally removing and reinstalling it seems to fix this.  Spyware Doctor gets quite a bit of the stuff I see, although it sounds an air raid siren type alert saying you have dozens of threats, when most of the time it’s just ad cookies from regular sites that are coming up.

I like Malware Bytes Antimalware – you can get it from Malwarebytes.org. In fairness, I am an affiliate, so if you buy that product, I get a small token sum for that.  But in my defense, I discovered this product BEFORE becoming an affiliate.  You can use the free version for both scanning AND removal, which is why I like it.  The full version adds realtime protection and some other neat features.

This isn’t going to be a full tutorial.  If you’re here, and downloading the above products to remove viruses and spyware that already exist, I’m making the assumption that you know what you’re doing and what buttons to click.  If you are here because your computer is infected, and you have no idea how to do this kind of thing, your best bet is to give us, or any computer service shop that you trust, a call.  When my refrigerator breaks, I call an appliance repair place.  I can unjam the icemaker, but if it stops cooling, I know I’m in over my head.

If, however, you are here because your computer ISN’T having any problems to speak of, good for you – your best bet is to put an Antivirus and Antispyware program on your PC to keep it that way.

I severely dislike Norton 360, Norton Internet Security, and products like it.  They are bloated, slow your system down extremely, often don’t uninstall cleanly, and block things you don’t want blocked.  9 times out of 10 that I get a home user that can’t see other computers on their own network, its because they’ve installed one or more of these types of products.  And yes, even after clicking the buttons to allow firewall exceptions, etc.  They are garbage, they don’t work properly, and I hate them.  I know that’s not exactly a technical overview, but if you have me work on your PC, the first thing I’m going to do when I see that is install something that works, and uninstall those.

I hope you found this article helpful!  As always, please contact us with specific questions or if you need immediate help with your computers.