PC help please

[CAGAN]

After keep getting pop ups I decided to run my AVG free for a virus search. It detected both Navipromo AA/AF Trojan horses, along with about 70 tracking cookies. AVG told me it had removed them, however despite what it thought it hadn't. Does anyone know of a FREE removal tool to get rid of this problem.
I have googled this and although there are many products claiming to be free, once they have detected the problems, they all want money.
Cheer

[Midas]

You might find this review of free anti-virus software of help. I use AVG, albeit their small business edition, and find it very good, but of course free and paid software for are often very different animals.

[CAGAN]

You might find this review of free anti-virus software of help. I use AVG, albeit their small business edition, and find it very good, but of course free and paid software for are often very different animals.

Normal antivirus won't cope. I have downloaded a free version of malwarebytes which appears to have done the job, fingers crossed

[Marxist Nutter]

Spybot is great!!!

It is not really anti virus software although it does often pick up a large number of viruses as well as adware and spyware. Also the registry defender is quite useful if you know what you are doing - otherwise it can get annoying!

[stevectaylor]

I use McAfee all in one protection as you should really have a firewall. Does not the new versions of Windows have antivirus and firewalls?

[Midas]

I use McAfee all in one protection as you should really have a firewall. Does not the new versions of Windows have antivirus and firewalls?

I've had a number of problems with McAfee (and Norton) in the past where it conflicts with some other software, and tends to pick up some macros and codes running within Windows applications as viruses As I said below, I use AVG small business edition on my PC here, but at work we have Agnitum Outpost installed on the entire network. Both of these incorporate very good and customisable software firewalls, although perhaps a bit of an overkill since there are hardware firewalls installed as well.

One of the reasons I like AVG on my home PC (and laptops) is that it's got a very good and very customisable spam filter built in, which can learn from blackhole websites like Spamcop and Spamhaus, which make a big difference to the amount of spam which gets past the mail server and onto the PC.

[CAGAN]

I use McAfee all in one protection as you should really have a firewall. Does not the new versions of Windows have antivirus and firewalls?

Vista has a firewall and something called windows defender, unfortunateley niether of them stopped this horrible little virus getting through.

[Midas]

Vista has a firewall and something called windows defender, unfortunateley niether of them stopped this horrible little virus getting through.

Both very basic I'm afraid

[Marxist Nutter]

The only anti-virus software I have ever had NO PROBLEMS AT ALL with is Sophos (I get it free from uni, but I think it could be a little expensive)

AVG was an absolute disaster - near impossible to uninstall all its components (ok this was a few years ago)

I also found McAfee a little cumbersome

I would recommend sophos 100% but am not sure how much it costs for the license.

However the most vital security thing IMO is NOT TO USE INTERNET EXPLORER and use firefox (or even Opera) instead and keep it fully updated. This massively reduces the risk of getting a virus in the first place.

[Midas]

If anyone is particularly concerned about picking up a trojan or virus when browsing, especially if they're in the habit of visiting web sites which are more suspect than others, i.e., hacking sites, file sharing sites etc., it might be worthwhile installing a program called Sandboxie.

Basically this sets up a temporary cache in memory, firewalled from the rest of the computer, so that anything downloaded into it during the browsing session, including and viruses, can be completely discarded at the end of the session with total safety. It also allows you to selectively save anything you might have downloaded which you know is safe, giving you a far finer control over security than is normally possible.





You can download the program as a 30 day free trial, then registration is only €22. Well worth it.