I got scammed

[Lord Kangana]

So which malware/spyware/whatevertechynamethey'vegotware would you recommend we install, as I'm always up for saving a few bob if I can.

[thebish]

Ok, so where do you find the windows roll back thingy?

that depends which version of windows you are using....

Vista.

Go.

in Vista (and 7, I think - though I don't have that) - it is called System Restore.

you get to it by typing "restore" into the Start menu search box - and then selecting "System Restore"

basically - Windows takes occasional snapshots of your pc and saves the settings - creating "restore points" - and you can choose which one to go back to.

you would need it most often if you installed something and suddenly your pc goes tits-up

- solution - go back to just before you installed whatever it was!

you should probably do this in Safe Mode. it will give you a recommended restore point - or you can choose one from a list. whichever you choose - it does not affect your documents - ie. documents you made after the restore point will survive intact.

if you get up one day and your pc simply won't boot into windows - this is also worth trying before you cart it down to a repair shop. of course - if you can't boot into windows - then you can't get to "system restore" in the way I have just described!

so - alternative route - put in the CD/DVD windows installation disk and boot from that. when it has all churned through its stuff - choose "repair your computer" and then "system restore" - you will need to select the disk your system is installed on - which will almost always be C - unless you were a clever dick and installed it somewhere else when you set it up! then you will get the same options as described above.

[Bruce Rioja]

I run MacAfee, which seems to take care of everything. Slows everything up when it's updating something though, which it seems to have to do fairly often.

bloatware!

Que?

bloatware - massively resource-hungry programmes that do a fairly small job (badly) whilst in the process slowing down your pc, taking up massive amounts of space and stuffing your machine with huge memory-sapping bolt-on programmes that you will never need....

(also applies - possibly slightly more - to Norton)

Ah right, thanks for that. Why on earth do they bother doing that then?

[TANGODANCER]

Glad you clarified the "bloatware" thing Bish. Explains were all these files come from that show up on a scan and you don't know where the hell they've come from. Big cause of slowing down pc speed which is a real nuisance.

[Wandering Willy]

a year or so back there was a worse one around - I forget what it was called - but it operated on the same principle - a scary pop-up that told you your PC was under attack... not surprisingly - my F-in-L caught it...

problem with that one was that the bugger recognised all attempts to download trojan-killers and blocked them from download! - even if (as i tried) I downloaded them onto a clean mammary stick from a clean PC and then tried the run them on the infected one.

the only way I found I could remove it was by using the Windows roll-back feature - I rolled the pc back to a week before he clicked on the trojan - and (though it was a last resort before reformatting and I didn't expect it to work) - it did!

I'd like one of these - where do you get them?

[thebish]

I run MacAfee, which seems to take care of everything. Slows everything up when it's updating something though, which it seems to have to do fairly often.

bloatware!

Que?

bloatware - massively resource-hungry programmes that do a fairly small job (badly) whilst in the process slowing down your pc, taking up massive amounts of space and stuffing your machine with huge memory-sapping bolt-on programmes that you will never need....

(also applies - possibly slightly more - to Norton)

Ah right, thanks for that. Why on earth do they bother doing that then?

my guess is - to make money...

[Bruce Rioja]

Sorry Bish but I'm a proper dullard when it comes to PC matters (amongst countless other things, yeah, yeah... ) but how do they make money out of stuffing my PC full of guff? I pay them something like £30 a year and would've thought that they'd look to provide the bare minimum.

[dave1980]

So which malware/spyware/whatevertechynamethey'vegotware would you recommend we install, as I'm always up for saving a few bob if I can.

Take your pick.

The best free ones are Windows Security Essentials, Avast and AVG free and as I said previously Malwarebytes is excellent for one off removals.

Alternatively the full version of malwarebytes is only about 40 dollars and they have a support forum should you get anything particularly nasty!

[Worthy4England]

I run MacAfee, which seems to take care of everything. Slows everything up when it's updating something though, which it seems to have to do fairly often.

bloatware!

Que?

bloatware - massively resource-hungry programmes that do a fairly small job (badly) whilst in the process slowing down your pc, taking up massive amounts of space and stuffing your machine with huge memory-sapping bolt-on programmes that you will never need....

(also applies - possibly slightly more - to Norton)

I would contend that McAfee does its job pretty well. I would also suggest that whilst its "fairly small job" is errr...fairly small, that it's level of importance is fairly high.

It is only likely to severely impact your processing power, if you have a small amount of RAM on some archaic PC with valves in it. In which case I'd advise on upgrading your RAM to something approaching the year 2000 and run it (or Norton) anyway.

I currently have 2Gb of RAM (on this comp at work) - The entire McAfee suite is taking up 0.2% of its current processing power...Hardly huge "bloat". It does download new virus signatures at regular intervals which have a processing impact. Well worth it - hardly noticable.

[TANGODANCER]

Just as an example (and not pretending in any way to understand it all), few days ago I did a Spybot scan and it showed 13 ad nuisances and got rid of them. Last night I did a Virgin-media security scan (took nearly two hours) that picked up one serious problem and sanitized it, and 192 other ( presumably minor and all from cookies) problems and deleated them. There were nearly 80,000 files scanned. Frightening...

[thebish]

Sorry Bish but I'm a proper dullard when it comes to PC matters (amongst countless other things, yeah, yeah... ) but how do they make money out of stuffing my PC full of guff? I pay them something like £30 a year and would've thought that they'd look to provide the bare minimum.

it's nothing complicated or technical, Bruce - just the tried and tested formula that people (men?) buy things that have more knobs on them. The two popular giants of the pre-installed antivirus/malware trade - Norton and McAfee - both simply have to make their products more knobbier and whistlier with each new iteration in order to convince people that they are being protected from yet more threats that they will probably never face...

also - people seem to be reassured if they have an invasive antivirus - one the pops up every 2minutes to tell you it has just protected you from something - or is doing an important scan - or just to remind you it is being ever vigilant - or it is updating its time-vortex-widget-sprocket...

me - I prefer my anti-malware to be small and uninvasive (and free!) - and do the job without me knowing it is there - and not suck the life out of my PC - but... I am in the minority and so Norton and McAffee aren't that bothered that I religiously purge their products from every PC that is ever entrusted into my hands!

[seanworth]

I've already used AVG free, and been quite happy with its performance.

[thebish]

I've already used AVG free, and been quite happy with its performance.

that's what I use - and I can't remember having a virus even though I am probably a fairly high-risk user in that my pc is used fairly often for downloading executable torrents...

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

not anti-virus but worth installing, if only to see who is trying to put cookies on your computer (though you can tell it to block them), os Ghostery. You'd be amazed how much 3rd party shite is put on your computer, even from 'reputable' websites. Happily TW doesn't put loads of cookies on your PC

[Little Green Man]

I run MacAfee, which seems to take care of everything. Slows everything up when it's updating something though, which it seems to have to do fairly often.

bloatware!

Que?

bloatware - massively resource-hungry programmes that do a fairly small job (badly) whilst in the process slowing down your pc, taking up massive amounts of space and stuffing your machine with huge memory-sapping bolt-on programmes that you will never need....

(also applies - possibly slightly more - to Norton)

Ah right, thanks for that. Why on earth do they bother doing that then?

Software can often get 'bloated' because it is old and so over the years more and more things have been tacked on to it. The companies selling such products could completely rewrite it to make it more efficient but it's often cheaper (at least in the short term) just to keep adding patches. I suspect anti-virus software is particularly prone to this as it's constantly being updated. (Some default anti-virus settings can also slow your system, eg if it's setup to do a full disk scan everytime you log in.)

I've used the free AVG and Avast recently. I've read that somewhere that AVG is now viewed as bloated as it too has been around for a while.

[Bruce Rioja]

I've read that somewhere that AVG is now viewed as bloated as it too has been around for a while.

I know how it feels.

[Wandering Willy]

I've already used AVG free, and been quite happy with its performance.

Is that an anagram?

[Prufrock]

Gavin was promised anonymity.

[Wandering Willy]

[Lofthouse Lower]

Had my card cloned at Christmas two years ago - wiped me out completely the day before I left for the holidays. Lost about £5,000 and only got it back from the bank a fortnight later - cue bank of Mum and Dad coming to the rescue