Virus software...

Whatever you do ... Dont start with Norton if you can avoid it.... Crashed two systems and froze this main pc every day about 3 X till I wiped it off... <br />Found, by a recommendation AVG and it works behind the scenes and updates about 3X in two wks (About a minute wait!) No problems and its caught a few TRYS in my daily surfing. By Bye Norton.

I know what you mean about Norton sed, I had that on a machine about five years ago, and got rid of it within a couple of days... it might work for some, but I found it cumbersome and intrusive. <br /> <br />I&acute;ve been using ZA free firewall since nineteen hundred and frozen to death. Think I&acute;ll invest $20 and get the virus option as well. <br /> <br />( Don&acute;t know what has happened to my machine, but something must have got in. Now when I try to run some of my programs they freeze when it comes to checking or opening the fonts folder. }:( 😢 )

I learnt a neat trick that convinced me Norton was crap. I bought the Norton 2005 Internet suite with Anti Virus and was surfing and found this site that appraises firewalls etc. They said a good test of any AV gear is to temporarily change the name of an exe file and then do a scan. If your gear does not pick up the change it is crap. I changed three files and Norton missed all three. The other point is Norton takes up so much space on your computer it means having to cut back on what you could have on board to run the application. AVG and AntiVir are good freeware apps and do what they are meant to do. Norton is expensive and is all show and no go. :congrats 😎 ;)

Run RemoveIt Pro once only through your machine.....it picks a lot of stuff up others don&acute;t the first time you use it and then it is useless. I use it now and then when I have difficult ones like you describe. It is free from majorgeek.com :congrats :congrats 😎 😎 ;) ;)

Interesting Iain... it found 5 that the others hadn&acute;t. <br /> <br />( I have a horrible feeling though that Spybot might have crunched something that my machine was using, and now I&acute;m left with a gap that I can&acute;t find, and several programs that stall on me ).

I used Norton&acute;s for a while but agree with Iain, it just uses up to much. I run Adaware every day in a smart scan and about every 30 days with a complete scan. I now use AVG and I have a sygate firewall. They seem to work really well and I too will never go back to Norton&acute;s.

Oh yeah I forgot something. I also use the Google toolbar which does a great job blocking pop-ups.

Give it a day or two to settle down Mick then run SuperAntiSpyware and you should see your computer stabilise. :congrats 😎 ;)

I use Spybot with Spybot Resident SD had no problems, Also Trend Security 14 checks every week just in case.. I also use spywareblaster, take no chances :)

Spybot and adaware did not always work together for me. Shame because spybot is for more than just spyware and free. <br /> <br />Nowadays I am trying to work WITHOUT microsoft anti spy tool which also can clash with other things and use adware from lavasoft for spyware and the virus program is german from databecker but slows things down so instead I have it scan frequently but dont always have its shield on. <br /> <br />Inside firefox I like what that guards a bit. Check my cookies a bit regulary. Thats about it for now (microsoft windows firewall). With your problem you might send Lavasoft a support quest and mention what else you got installed like spybot etc. <br /> <br />When having msn and the likes on I dont mess with my mail server or bank accounts for safety reasons. These messengers are somewhat inevitable yet hazardous. <br /> <br />You might add something to your ignore lists inside adaware and especially inside spybot. (Doctoring symptoms not best thing, though). If deinstalling spybot try to unlock everything guarded by it first though. I dont mean a registry rollback from its normal backup functions though. If thats too old it could kill other things. Could send spybot a mail, too. But they might want you to pay for that. With Lavasoft you paid anyway?, wonder what they tell you. Shame they offer a firewall separately but still no virus solution from them. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />

hi! <br />Im using firefox for browsing (much better security then explorer) and the Kerio Personal Firewall. I never have anything spyware/virus like on my pc. I check every now and then with Ad-aware. If you know what to accept, download, click your PC stays virusfree :) <br />Ideally dont use Outlook, its one of the biggest virus spreader i know.. (we have it at work.. omg..) <br />Eudora is a very good alternative.

Thanks to everyone for your advice and suggestions... all of which have been taken on board. <br /> <br />The current state of affairs is that having run Spybot and deleted a ton of stuff ( probably too much! 😢 ) my copy of AVG recognised the bug this morning and gained access ( something it was earlier saying I couldn&acute;t do because of administrative rights ) ... it cleaned up 44 files! I don&acute;t know what the Trojan was hiding behind, but Spybot got rid of the sheild and AVG killed it. <br /> <br />For the most part the machine is back to normal.... LOL <br /> <br />Unfortunately Spybot also seems to have deleted something that is linked to my font folder, and I can&acute;t figure out what it is... so if I try to open the font folder, or anything that initialises the fonts, or trys to open the folder, the machine freezes for about five minutes before whatever application it is eventually kicks in. I know I should be pleased that it kicks in at all... but I ain&acute;t ( I don&acute;t do pleased very well in slow motion! ) <br /> <br />Similarly I am also ignorant of what a good registry entry for the font folder in windows on a machine running XP Home with SP2 should look like, so if someone would post theirs on this thread I&acute;d be garteful... even grateful. <br /> <br />One good thing that has come out of this debacle is finding a couple of sweet little freebies that some of you might like to take advantage of. <br /> <br />The first is CCleaner...the computer equivalent of a bog brush without the bleach ~ http://www.ccleaner.com/ <br /> <br />Also you might like to take a look at the Fresh range of software. I have found the Diagnose software a boon in the last 36 hours.~ http://www.freshdevices.com/ ~ even if it has made some of my settings look otherworldly <br /> 😂 <br /> <br />Thank you my friends for your contributions... in&acute;it nice to be part of such a great informal forum.

Never got on well with cc cleaner...I use easycleaner from nonags.com. :congrats 😎 ;)

<br />The long and the short of it is that due to your advice I seem to have resolved the issues... thank you my friends

For browsing, Iam using Netscape 8.1 (on Gecko engine and sometimes I switch to the trident engine ) and the browser comes with Spyware protection - analises any doanload I make to search for spyware, and when running a future systtem scan, just discovered things, neither Adware and Spy bot have catch.It comes also with a site verifier,and IDTheft protection Nevertheless, I run also these two, n( Spy bot and Adware ) together with SpywareBlaster, with very good results. On the virus and trojans protection, just working with Avast !, for 4 years in a row, with excellent results. Only for your information, Avast was considered the best antivirus software in 2005/2006, and its free. :Happy