I formatted my hard drive today and reinstalled Windows, mainly because I had some nasty spyware that caused permanent damage to my system. I would like to avoid this in the future if possible. I remembered someone creating a useful thread about this some time ago, but I couldn't find it. Anyway, I currently have updated versions of Adaware and Spybot Search & Destroy. Are there any other (free) products I should look into? Is there a good free utility that runs in the background and zaps spyware as it encounters it? I also plan on making Mozilla Firefox my primary browser, since I heard that it is less vulnerable than IE. Does anyone have any other tips to reduce or avoid spyware problems?
Webroot Spy Sweeper is pretty good. I only have the free version so I can't get updates unless I pay, but it still finds tons of stuff that Adaware misses...
Several free programs: Spybot Search & Destroy Adaware SpywareBlaster Mozilla Firefox (browser) Mozilla Thunderbird (email)
This isn't for spyware, but since you've got a clean slate now, I figured I'd recommend a few neat free or open source programs. Some other good free programs you may or may not find useful: 7-zip http://www.7-zip.org/ An Open-Source zip program that works really, really well. It does lots of different archives, plus it's got its own format (7zip) which compresses better than regular zip. Filezilla http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla If you need an FTP program, this is maybe your best bet. It supports lots of types of transfers (FTP, FTP over SSL, SFTP, etc.), and it works spectacularly well. Really Slick Screensavers http://www.reallyslick.com/ Open-Source screensavers that rock. OpenOffice http://www.openoffice.org/ An open-source office program that's very full-featured and easy to use. It doesn't quite measure up to MS office all-around, and isn't the great wordprocessor that WordPerfect is. But, it's a really featureful program, and you can't beat the price. It's all I use. Abiword http://www.abisource.com/ A nice little wordprocessor. Great for simple, quick documents. Irfanview http://www.irfanview.com/ Very simple image viewer that can do a bit of simple editing too. It's a must-install for every PC I roll out. PDF Creator http://sector7g.wurzel6.de/pdfcreator/index_en.htm A nice open source program that allows you to write PDF documents.
Firefox. One word... AWESOME. this is why i love this site. people give good advice that i eventually get around to following much later.
Okay... I have a question that's sort of related. Currently my computer has the following viruses: 1. sometimes it says "LSAshell... blah blah blah" and "RPC blah blah..." and then it shuts down after counting down from a minute. I know a while ago that there was this Sasser worm thing that did this... but I'm pretty sure I don't have that. Well anyway I don't reboot my computer that often so I just type "shutdown -a" and keep working. but this has got to be some type of worm. how do you get rid of it? 2. sometimes my computer starts running slow and i go to task manager and there are these instances of NORTONav.exe running... i googled that and that's apparently a worm too. So i just end task and then use HiJackTHis to take it away. But the problem is it keep coming back! Are there free programs out there that kills worms and trojans (is that what these are)? I mean my computer is functional right now... but it freezes sometimes and that's annoying.
That sounds like the sasser worm. MS has a patch for it here and a removal tool With the no of worms out there it's good to install a software firewall or at least enable the Xp firewall. Running in limited user mode also prevents accidental installing of popup malware.
