My PC Is Infected up the Wazoo! :(

[The+Deleted]

My PC is telling me about a lot of infections. Is there any free anti virus etc. I can use until payday when I can by some protection. I was using Bullguard trial.
But when I click on my Firewall option etc. It says Off, but it's On when I click on the actual Firewall options.
Help!!!

[Killer_Carp]

My PC is telling me about a lot of infections. Is there any free anti virus etc. I can use until payday when I can by some protection. I was using Bullguard trial.
But when I click on my Firewall option etc. It says Off, but it's On when I click on the actual Firewall options.
Help!!!

A tag team of McAfee and Iolo System Mechanic should do the trick.


http://www.iolo.com/system-mechanic/standard/

[Bilge Rat]

I use Avast Antivirus. I used to use AVG but that hasn't worked properly for me since Vista came out. Aviva is another alternative but I found it very intrusive and annoying. All of those are free.

For free spyware I use Spyware Search and Destroy and AdAware. I used to use ZoneAlarm as a free firewall but this was, again, broken by the appearance of Vista. Now I just use Window's own crappy firewall and hope that it is actually doing something.

Another useful tip is to install a script blocker on your browser. I use NoScript on Firefox. This prevents the browser from running JavaScript and what have you so there is less chance of something getting onto your machine through malicious net code. It will break a lot of regular sites though so it is a bit annoying having to whitelist everything you don't want it to block. Still, if you are looking at lots of dodgy porn sites like I am then it gets rid of a lot of the pop-ups and other nasty tricks.

However, bear in mind that if you computer is already infected then often it is less of a headache to just back up all your data and then do a fresh install of Windows. Once a virus has taken hold it is often extremely hard to get rid of it.

[Craymen Edge]

My PC is telling me about a lot of infections. Is there any free anti virus etc. I can use until payday when I can by some protection. I was using Bullguard trial.
But when I click on my Firewall option etc. It says Off, but it's On when I click on the actual Firewall options.
Help!!!

you might just have one of the false anti-malware trojans that tell you you've got a load of made up infections in order to make you pay for a program (that doesn't actually do anything).

Download and use RKill http://www.technibble.com/rkill-repair- ... -the-week/ to kill off any of the better known malware processes, and then run a Malwarebytes scan.

After that, get yourself some of the free antivirus and anti-malware programs mentioned.

[The+Deleted]

Cheers people. Keep getting Porno links on my desktop... Looks like I'm going to have to get it sorted proper. seems it's phishing and hoping I'll buy the protection it keeps chucking at me. Soon be payday...

[Bilge Rat]

Can't you just reinstall Windows rather than buying virus protection? Just because the anti-virus is paid-for doesn't mean it will work. I think you are throwing your money away.

[Miss Moth]

A computer whiz mate of mine used to help me out with this problem, back when I was not secure. The only way to get rid of these things when it's so far gone, he said [and did], is to boot up in Safe Mode and hit the Registry, deleting all the rogue programs that have installed themselves. Pretty much a similar level of hassle to re-installing your OS, but buying one of the 'big' anti-virus programs isn't likely to sort this out.

[Tlix]

I'm a bit over protective of my computer so run about 6-7 things at the start of each month to check everything is alright although some of those are to clear out as much as possible too to make my computer run as fast as it can.

A couple of the free ones I use are MalwareBytes and Spybot. Both seem to do their job well