Well, after owning this computer for about a month and a half and formatting and reinstalling windows a total of 4 times due to viruses, it's happened again. I'm guessing my mistake was downloading Kazaa and disabling internet security once so that I could get some games running faster, but I've had to uninstall Norton Antivirus because I kept getting virus warnings which slowed the speed of my computer down to a crawl and it was impossible to turn them off.

Is leaving internet security on at all times the only way I can prevent this from happening in the future? Should I just not download Kazaa? It seems like a huge target has been painted on my computer and whenever I let my guard down, a virus gets in. I also get about 2,500 virus emails every single day. I just need to know what to do to avoid this happening again. This is unbelievably irritating!

 

1st: NEVER use kazaa. use shareaza (www.shareaza.com) instead. sheesh man!!!

2nd: for security I strongly suggest the use of zonealarmpro. run it, use it, love it. its okay to bitch about it when its annoying but love it anyways.

3rd: get symantec antivirus (formerly norton)... the trick here is to make sure your virus definitions are always up to date. you can even schedule the liveupdate to do this for you. outdated virus definitions render your fancy antivrirus system useless.

4th: remember that most viruses come in via email. what email client do you use? make sure that you have some incoming mail scanning setup. this is crucial.

5th: keep your system up to date with system patches and such. the microsoft update system is actually rather good and i suggest you make a habit of checking for new updates regardless of whether it alerts you or not.

 

If you are willing to accept some discipline, you can use Virus detection without hardly any performance problems.

Set your virus program to scan all downloads and email.
Turn off real-time scanning.
Update your virus definitions as often as possible (like daily)

That way, everything downloaded to your machine will be scanned. As long as you don't practice unsafe computing methods (like sharing floppies) or exchanging CDs burned with an unprotected computer, you'll be fine.

The real-time detection scans all the files as they are accessed which really craps out the computer. I've run for years with this configuration, used Kazaa, and never had any problems.

 

1st: NEVER use kazaa. use shareaza (www.shareaza.com) instead. sheesh man!!!

Does Shareaza install ad software or any other annoying programs on my computer?

2nd: for security I strongly suggest the use of zonealarmpro. run it, use it, love it. its okay to bitch about it when its annoying but love it anyways.

3rd: get symantec antivirus (formerly norton)... the trick here is to make sure your virus definitions are always up to date. you can even schedule the liveupdate to do this for you. outdated virus definitions render your fancy antivrirus system useless.

I have Norton (Symantec) antivirus and internet security. Is this enough?

4th: remember that most viruses come in via email. what email client do you use? make sure that you have some incoming mail scanning setup. this is crucial.

I use outlook, but I don't download the files that are attatched to these emails. Can they still come in to my computer somehow?

5th: keep your system up to date with system patches and such. the microsoft update system is actually rather good and i suggest you make a habit of checking for new updates regardless of whether it alerts you or not.

I had all of my windows updates installed as of a week or so before the virus hit me...



Also, I just finished backing up all of my important data on 4 CDs. I'm guessing I should just scan these with norton before I copy anything onto my computer after I format?

Thanks for the help

Lee

 

1-shareaza has no spyware or ads
2/3-i'm not a fan of the norton security package myself but i'm sure its just fine. again, make sure you keep those virus defs up to date. new nasties hit the net all the time.
4-norton/symantec AV comes with a plug in for outlook. make sure it's enabled. personally i disable checking of outgoing mail. it slows it down too much and bugs me. definitely scan incoming though. i think theres an appropriately named email menu in the norton config screen.
5- you're on the right track. this is only a component of the equation but keep doing it.

scanning the cd's is a good idea but keep in mind that as a read only media you can't clean or quarantine those files.... scan them and then deal with them appropriately.

 

do you have a broadband connection? if so, i recommend some sort of hardware router as a buffer between your machine and the internet. something as simple as a router will prevent tons on headaches later. routers will not help when it comes to email viruses or viruses passed via floppys, but it will help to prevent worms like the blaster virus from ever getting to your computer.

ALWAYS have some kind of antivirus installed, i like norton corporate 7.6. It does not take as much overhead as some other versions of norton.

 

 

Jesus f*ing christ it happened again. I don't know where these god damned viruses are coming from but I downloaded all of my windows updates, patches for the blaster virus, installed norton and ran liveupdate, and I'm now full of viruses again and need to format for the 5th time.

 

Woo, I formatted again and I after installing drivers, norton, and windows updates, I came across another virus or two which I immediately downloaded patches and removal tools for. I have a Linksys router which I wasn't using previously because it either didn't work or ran my connection VERY slowly. I've got it installed now and everything seems to be running fine.

Since I am getting 2500+ virused emails a day, I can't scan them all or I'll have to click "OK" on the Norton popup window for each one. I'm not vulnerable unless I download these attatched files, correct?

Thanks for your help, everyone.