On the Thursday before we left for the memorial service for RC Ryder our home PC was taken out by a very well crafted malicious trojan horse package. Our INTERNET Service Provider is Cox and they offer the McAfee Security Center suite as part of their Internet package. In the past, I had subscribed to McAfee directly for their security suite, but when Cox.com announced that they were offering it as part of their service I bailed out and just loaded what Cox had to offer.

After the Plant Pixie clicked on what ever she did to cause a Windows Defender Message to pop up our PC was hosed. I made two attempts to fix it and then went to a computer guru who confirmed that we had been the victim of a very well written trojan horse package that would not let him recover the PC's network functionality without a lot of work. As that PC was a Dell Dimension 8200 with a P4 2.4 GHZ processor that is about seven years old, that was the catalyst that I needed to order a new system.

I was slightly reluctant to order a system with USB 2 as USB 3 is on the verge of being released. But, after surfing the net for a while I came to the conclusion that no one is offering USB 3 yet. So, I called Dell with the intent of asking them about when they were going to offer USB 3. I was connected with a very enthusiastic person named Kaela. She went on to explain that at this point in time there are not really any USB 3 accessories available at this point in time that Dell does not plan on offering it until "the horse gets back in front of the cart" Any way, I made the decision that it was NOT the end of the world, but being without a home PC was. She talked me through the configuration that I wanted and talked me out of a couple of options. (PM me if you wish to know) The bottom line is that it could not have been a more pleasant experience dealing with her. She honored the discount code that that I had found on line that provided a 25% discount. As I had previously been on their website to configure the same system I know that the price reflected a discount.

When it came to the point about pre-installed security protection she mentioned that some ISP's do not offer their full security suite. As I was under the impression that Cox.com was offering the full blown security suite protection that McAfee offers to their subscription customers, I called Cox last night and discovered that she was correct. Cox offers a "Lite" version of McAfee not the full blown version that one gets if one subscribes to McAfee.

For what it is worth I would recommend her to anyone. After placing the order I received a confirmation E-mail for her with the following message:

Matt,

It was a pleasure speaking with you and assisting you with your Studio XPS 9000.
We wanted to thank you for your business!

As your direct Dell Sales Professional, I take pride in my work and if you were pleased
with the service you received today, could you refer my name to your family and friends?

If I am working with another customer and you reach my voice mail, I or someone
on my team will respond within 2 hrs if you leave a detailed message.

Sales Rep Name: Kaela Jochec

Phone Number: 1-800-879-3355 ext 2168274

Visit the Team Blackhawk Website to connect to our facebook page and for any new update

******************************************

If anyone needs a new PC I would recommend dealing with her.

No, she is not a relative of mine. I just appreciate outstanding customer service.
And she is located in Texas, not in India. We are looking forward to getting our new I7 920 processor system.

 

Good to hear that you're back in business, and that Dell took care of you. I've bought from them before, and never had any issues.

JonasM

 

These virus/hacker people should be Recently my work computer got hosed as you say.

Trust me when I tell you that computer does not go where it should not. I never click on blind links, and am very careful where I surf.

I couldn't even get to a point where I could TRY to stop the virus from doing it's work.

I didn't buy a new computer, but took it in to my computer guy. He re-formatted it, re-loaded most of my programs and retrieved may data. I also had a backup of everything of importance. Still it was a real PIA, and extremely time consuming.

I do use Norton (purchased annually, not from ISP) and keep it updated. Now I also use the MalAwares and use both programs to scan the computer several times/week.

Enjoy your new computer!

 

Matt, I'm looking forward to your review of the I7 and windows 7.
did you Win7 home or professional?

 

I use McAfee as my virus protection. I also use Webroot. I love Webroot as it has a pop up to ask it it should allow any program to be installed. Can be a little pain when installing new software. It also has detected more trojans and other malware than McAfee. I stongly recommend.

 

We purchased ESET NOD32 antivirus, which was recommended by Microcenter when we bought our new system in June 2009. It's automatically updated almost daily and seems to have averted any problems initiated by an infected website.

It could 49 bucks and I'll gladly renew in June In fact, I've also seen this antivirus recommended on on the the "Best this and that" lists. LINK

 

There was quite an incident involving McAfee a couple of weeks ago: they pushed out a virus profile update (.dat file) that caused the anti-virus software to determine that an operating system file (svchost.exe I think it was) in Windows XP SP3 was a virus, so the anti-virus program whacked the operating system file.

This resulted in thousands of computers in corporate America losing network connectivity; fixing it required a personal visit to each affected computer since they couldn't receive the fix over the network. My employer had just started the upgrade from XP SP2 to SP 3; every single one of the upgraded PC's lost network access.

McAfee's name is Mudd in corporate America about this time.

 

Matt, I had just the opposite experience from Comcast. Comcast was offering Norton Suite for free and I had Norton AntiVirus 2010 with Antispyware installed. I contacted Norton to see if there was any advantage for me to install Security Suit?
They explained Suite provided the same level of protection as of Norton Antivirus 2010 and was built on the proven technology of Norton 360. They recommended I switch from the software I had paid them for to the free software from Comcast. They provided me with lists that compared the major differences between two versions, with Suite providing more protection. They said there would be some loss of speed but both they and I feel that's a good trade off, as I too picked up a trojan virus a couple years ago and don't need that mess again.

I am probably ready for a new pc, as I'm running out of RAM again. My 'box' is 11 years old. I have upgraded the CPU once and RAM a couple times. It's probably time to start fresh.

 

This looks like what happened to us. The PC was XP with SP3 and it lost all of it's network connections as well as the printer. In Device Manager the NIC was there and apparently operating properly. However it would not let me create a new network connection to reestablish a connection to my router or the Internet.

Unfortunately, we have not received the new PC or Net book yet. It has to be built. I am hoping that with our premium ISP package at 25 MBPS that it will be blindingly fast. I also upgraded to a N wireless router. I will report in after I get everything hooked up.

 

Here's some more detail from Cnet.com:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-20003074-83.html

I'm sure that McAfee software is a good product, or it wouldn't be used in so many corporations. I'm sure they will ensure that this doesn't happen again; but there were a lot of people upset with them on 4/21.