how to fix your poopy comp (remove spyware and viruses in safemode!!!!) Please download them and save to your desktop, then install them right away. The programs you will download are antivir (virus scan), spybot (spyware scan) and a microsoft program. download sites: (click the links or copy/paste, then download them) antivir: http://majorgeeks.com/downloadget.php?id=955&file=11&evp=b7cc93b8a46387032dd7756deb50bbbd spybot: http://majorgeeks.com/downloadget.php?id=2471&file=11&evp=2470f9bfb0cc682334ff8c4459556118 microsoft antispyware: http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Microsoft-AntiSpyware--Beta-Download-18750.html If these download sites do not work, try searching for them at http://www.majorgeeks.com or http://www.download.com .Sorry if this seems complex, i can help install them if you need it. If you can, try to update them before scanning your pc. Microsoft antispyware will prevent alot of problems. If problems continue or cannot be removed, run all three programs in safemode. To do so, restart the PC. while it is booting, tap the F8 key. This will prompt you to a menu, where you can choose safemode. Once in safemode, run spybot, antivir, and antispyware. Lastly, stop using Internet explorer (or other web browsers). Instead use firefox at http://www.mozilla.org (click the green, free download). This can prevent alot of problems. Also, try not to install demo software that has spyware such as filesharing programs (kazaa ect). If your kids download stuff that you suspect is causing problems, I can suggest other software for them that will not cause the problem please also update your computer at http://www.windowsupdate.com
get peer guardian to protect you from a large portion of evil. it also is a limited firewall that uses low resources people:http://phoenixlabs.org/ To reduce lag caused by anti-virus scanners(someone complained they slow their PC, i do not recommend this unless you are stupid or on a slow computer or both)... A. less extreme: under scan options (somewhere in your software) turn off "scan files read from disk" and instead (keep/check)turn on "scan files written to disk". this means your scanner will stop hogging hd/cpu time by reducing much of the scanning. B. more extreme: research the "msconfig" command along with disabling programs in the startup tab. however ONLY DISABLE THE KNOWN PROGRAMS. IF YOU DISABLE WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW WITH OUT GOOGLE RESEARCH YOU WILL RISK MESSING UP IMPORTANT SOFTWARE FOR YOUR COMPUTER. once in this location you could uncheck your virus scanner software from loading. lastly avast is a good program at majorgeeks.com for removing viruses, it has a handy scan disk tool for when you install the program.
good post buddy, hopefully this thread will be made a sticky, it's good info on how to get rid of that annoying spyware rubbish without having to resort to formatting
Nice one, and yeah, this would be good as a sticky. I find it quite surprising that we have a computing section here, not that I'm objecting. But could you imagine the response if I went to a computing site and asked about the best way to land a punch in their "off topic" area? Might get some interesting responses.
I'll continue to add stuff. I figure its faster for me to make 1 big post to save people from formatting, then replying to many posts on several forums lol. There are more advance ideas for stoping spyware/adaware and viruses, so if the above solution does not work for people, I will provide additional solutions as problems occur. If people switched to Firefox from IE, it would solve alot of problems haha. Also, be careful on what p2p programs you use since that is were many viruses come from (users) and spyware (from the programs). A safer alternative is torrents, and much more efficient. Some useful fun programs from google: Google Web accelerator: it speeds up non-secure webpages by downloading pages from a faster server: http://webaccelerator.google.com/ Picasa: free photo organization/editing/email, it works through gmail as well if you want to instantly send pictures. Great program: http://picasa.google.com/index.html Google toolbar: stops some pop ups (firefox is enough), but its good for speeding up searches and spell checking your posts, which I don't: http://toolbar.google.com/firefox/index.html Faster defragmenter: (free, helps organize/speed up your drive) http://majorgeeks.com/Power_Defragmenter_GUI_d4647.html better video/audio codec, when your vids dont work: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/FFDShow.htm -try the newest version or october 2004 version. only use this if you have troubles playing video stinger: http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4063 additional mcafee tool to remove many viruses (run in safemode) winamp: good mp3 player, descent video... http://www.winamp.com shew!
Bump for those in need! free firewall: http://majorgeeks.com/ZoneAlarm_Free_d388.html free office suite: http://www.openoffice.org/ Performance stuff: Run scandisk to solve any disk issues (you may be asked to restart): http://www.duxcw.com/faq/win/xp/scandisk.htm After your scandisk is finished, you should defrag your pc to organize the date more efficiently on the drive(best done with no other programs open): http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314848
