Malware question

[andybot]

also, make sure you keep up with software updates. Java, flash, and pdf are notorious for their security holes. There are regular updates to fix those. I assume you already keep up with windows updates.

[EscapeArtist]

Avast! Free antivirus.

[irwanwr]

@escapeartist said:

Avast! Free antivirus.

agree

[d12dozr]

@solo said:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/products/security-essentials

I've had no problems with this one

[notareal]

http://www.sandboxie.com/ Don't let those bugs roam freely

[Mike Lucey]

OSX

[Daniel]

Thanks for recommendations; much appreciated. When I researched removing the malware, malwarebytes was always recommended for detecting/locating it, so I'll try that and see if it's just as good at blocking malware before infecting the computer. I'll also try Windows Essentials, since it's free, and I've already wasted money on an antivirus program which apparently is useless.

[kmead]

@mike lucey said:

OSX

Mac OSX for the win...

Masterful, Mr Lucey, just masterful

I find it amazing how willing we are to tolerate a situation where some products are so unreliable. If our cars were that unreliable we would be up in arms. Aahh well so it goes.

Good luck with resurrecting your computer.

[irwanwr]

@kmead said:

I find it amazing how willing we are to tolerate a situation where some products are so unreliable. If our cars were that unreliable we would be up in arms. Aahh well so it goes.

Good luck with resurrecting your computer.

i see that differently. it's not about whether reliable or not a product or OS would be.
if "unreliable" really count all aspects and put as an example application software compabilities, i'll bet you will find it harder to get a lot of applications that Mac compatible rather than PC.

you don't have to go far away to look for an example. see this forum. how many post asking something like
"is there a way to make this plugin work on Mac?"
now, that is just an example about plugin. there are countless application out there in the real world that aren't Mac compatible.

an illustration, in terms of "time is short, life is hard, money is tight, etc." decision making.
some friends of mine often ask me the same question about so many softwares available that i use and could use on my PC. even for OS options. not to mention free and open source OSs available for PC like Linux for an example. then i used to reply their question:
"why did you buy that expensive, environment limited thing in the first place anyway?"
and how many are there hardware available openly in the market for certain brand? i could bet that there are a lot and a lot of options available for PC.
we can continue the queries of how rich, powerful, flexible and so on about a platform and an OS if we want to.

about malware risk, etc. you'll see that UNIX or Linux based don't have the same issue also. simply because those malware programmers, crackers, hackers, etc. mostly aren't using the same OS. and most of their targets aren't using the same OS either. it would be the other way around if that certain OS really found it's place on the whole user market share percentages map in general.

cheers.

[unigami]

The best malware protection software is YOU

http://theoldergeek.com/troubleshooting/security-issues/how-to-avoid-computer-viruses-and-phishing-hacks