trying to avoid a virus

[videovillageidiot]

a few months ago best buy said my computer had a bunch of traces of viruses (like a thousand?!). that ordeal resulted in reloading my system, and, as a result, now i am verrrry careful where i wander on the internet. the geek made it sound like any site was a virus waiting to attack (though when i picked up my machine, a geek was showing me something and he went on the internet to youtube - this particular geek claimed that was safe, though the previous geek had said that most photo/video/music sharing sites were dangerous?!).

so my question is, what does everyone think is a safe website? note: i do have antivirus software - webroot antivirus with spysweeper. i have mostly only gone to muvipix (no problems here, right? ), bestbuy.com and a few of the national parks and state websites since i got my computer back. needless to say - that is very limiting. can i check weather.com? links thru muvipix? travel sites (hotels, airlines, etc.)? my neighbor's blog? flickr? vimeo?

really, i never went anywhere "naughty" so how did i get the viruses unless the "safe" sites aren't really safe?

[Paul LS]

My question would be... if in fact you did have a bunch of viruses why didn't your antivirus software pick them up or stop them being downloaded in the first place.

I wander all over the internet... and quite often my antivirus software, AVAST which is free, will pop up and stop me going to a site.

As for photo/video/music sharing sites.. he was refering to peer-to-peer sites which illegally share copyrighted material... not sites like Youtube.

[Bobby]

There are no "safe" websites - period. No email is private. Get used to it or turn off the switch. Sorry to be so blunt, but forewarned is forearmed.

So you need the best tools. I recommend (although others here will disagree with me) that you get Norton, specifically Norton Internet Security 2010. IMHO (and I had my own PC company for 10 years) it is the best on the market. That is all I use, and all I trust.

[Ron]

I also wouldn't trust Best Buy in telling you that you had many viruses on your computer (let alone one virus). It doesn't surprise me... they want your biz whether it's to charge you to fix the computer or sell you another. It's the only reason they exist - to sell you a product.

Any anti-virus software will protect you as much as it possibly can, if that makes any sense. I use Avast as well, not a single problem here.

[Bobby]

I disagree Ron, although it may be just semantics. You need more than just anti-virus - you need the entire anti-spyware suite, which include anti-spyware, firewall, and other protection on top of anti-virus. If that is what you meant, we are in agreement!

[Chuck Engels]

My guess would be that it was probably more spyware and malware than viruses on your computer, but no one will know for sure. There is some pretty nasty spyware out there these days, can slow your computer down to a crawl. So yes, you need Anti Virus and Anti Spyware and as much knowledge as you can get. Read up on viruses and spyware, how they get on your machine, what they do, how you can recognize that they may be on your system, and get protected. I use Avast, SpyBot, and MalwareBytes, the Avast on-access scanner runs in the background and I do a full scan with SpyBot and MalwareBytes on a regular basis or if I have reason to think there may be a spyware issue.

[Peru]

My question would be... if in fact you did have a bunch of viruses why didn't your antivirus software pick them up or stop them being downloaded in the first place.

I wander all over the internet... and quite often my antivirus software, AVAST which is free, will pop up and stop me going to a site.

Avast does the same for me.

I use Comodo Firewall (not the suite), Avast Antivirus, Superantispyware (manual scans), Malwarebytes Antimalware (manual scans), and Spybot (Tea Timer disabled), all free.

See this for a good description of security software:
http://forums.computeractive.co.uk/show ... p?t=142976

[Bob]

muvipix.jpg

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

And don't forget that if you want a 'third party' check there is always Trend's housecall: I can't post you the USA link as it defaults to my location which is the UK. Just put 'trend house call' into Google.

[Chuck Engels]

It would probably be best if you went with one of the top brands like Norton, McAfee or Trend Micro. Bobby likes Norton and obviously John likes Trend. These can be pretty much 'set it and forget it' programs that will do everything automatically behind the scenes. If there are any problems they guide you through the process. Avast does most of that also but the 'Paid For' programs offer more support among other benefits.

[Gerlinde]

I used OneCare from Microsoft on both of my computers ( still use it on my desktop) and I use now Microsoft Essentials ( which is free ), never had any virus problems.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

It would probably be best if you went with one of the top brands like Norton, McAfee or Trend Micro. Bobby likes Norton and obviously John likes Trend.

Actually, Chuck, I use Avira.

But every few months I run Trend Housecall (it is FREE - just love that word) and it performs a full system scan. Just nice to get a 'second opinion' now and then. You have to run it on-line to the Trend website so it is always up to date

But be aware that the 'Housecall' takes about two hours or so to run - well at least that's how long it takes on my system.

[Chuck Engels]

Here is some good general information about spyware and viruses, where they come from, how we get them, good information that everyone should have.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_virus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adware
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_hor ... mputing%29

And the most scary of all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimeware

There is lots more but this will at least give anyone enough information to help keep their systems free of junk, and if something should happen the knowledge of what to do about it and how.