Any Recommendations For A "Safe" Online Anti-Virus Program To Run?

[kittkatt]

If you're not comfortable, then you may need to have a professional look at your system. There is a lot of trouble shooting you can do on your own but you have to be comfortable getting into the "bowels" of the system so to speak.

I'm not comfortable messing around with a lot of things, b/c I don't know what the heck I'm doing.

My s/o managed to get the computer up & running again, then it went down again.

So he played around with it again this morning, and it's up now again.

Don't ask me what he did to it, b/c I have no idea. He said it had something to do with voltage, or power. He said I should leave it in the stand-by mode from now on, instead of turning it off like I normally do when I'm done using it.

I really appreciate everyone's advice and all, but to be honest, I'm afraid to run any of the programs that y'all mentioned, for fear of screwing it up again..

everyone!

~KK~

 

[kittkatt]

Originally Posted by TobyT

have you checked to see if your hard drive is full? a good indicator of a failed download is that there isn't any room to save the file.

My son just ran a "start-up" disc about a month ago when he was here visiting from Wisconsin, b/c the computer had crashed prior to that and that was the only way he could get it running again. So I know there's lots of space - something like 21 GB's free space. So I don't think that's the problem...

~KK~

 

[kittkatt]

Originally Posted by TobyT

I personally use a version of ESET NOD32 Antivirus...it works...got a free version running but may have to buy the full version soon. Also something you might want to do if your in the position to reimage your hard drive...is put your operating system on something other than the C drive...put it on something other than that. here's the reason behind that. Most Virus's...not all...but most are written for windows with the idea that windows was installed without any modification what so ever to the installation. so when they program a virus to do something in windows, such as access or modify a windows file...they would reference the file with "C:\\...."...its a little technical i think but...for the most part it works out well. That and remembering not to open up any emails from folks you do not know should always be done. Not heeding that is just asking for a virus to wreak havoc on your system.

All this is waaaay above MY head!

But thanks for trying to help!

~KK~

FWIW, I never open any e-mails from peeps I don't know. I also no longer open e-mails that have any attachments.

 

[kittkatt]

Originally Posted by mzjazz2u

http://us.mcafee.com/root/mfs/default.asp
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

If I try running these programs and they detect something, will they automatically get rid of the virus or whatever it is?

Also make sure you have all microsoft critical updates and that you have automatic update running for microsoft (if you're using windows.) Those usually include the mallicious software updates, which helps protect your PC.

The automatic updates are running continuously.

 

[kittkatt]

Originally Posted by Arlyn

You want a free online scanner that is safe?

I heartily recommend http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

I use these guys a lot, so I can vouch for the safety.
This scanner has caught things on my old computer that AVG, McAfee and Norton all missed, and gave removal advice.

for recommending this.

I may give it a shot, but like I said, I'm afraid to run anything after what happened the other day!