oh man, not a virus!! D:

Meganium90 said:

Viruses and malware aren't just computer things, you can also get them in tablets and smartphones (even I was mindblown by that when I was first told xD).

Click to expand...

Of course you can. Everything which has some sort of OS (operating system) can get a virus. Doesn't matter if it's a Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod, a PC with Linux, or even an old Nokia. The reason why Apple has said many times that Mac is 100% virus proof is because not many people could afford a Mac, therefore hackers didn't bother making viruses when so few people have a Mac. But these days far more people have one, so Mac is pretty much as vulnerable to viruses as Windows is.

On this computer (the one I'm typing this on), I've had only one major virus infect my system. It was so bad that I almost broke down and asked my dad if he could reset my entire computer. Almost. To give you an idea of how bad it was...I could barely run this thing in Safe Mode without it crashing and restarting. Luckily I consulted a site that has experts on removing all sorts of malware. They identified the problem and had it fixed within 2 weeks. Fearing some low-life stole usernames/passwords from my computer, I changed most of them after it was fixed. So...lucky me I guess?

The ironic thing is that I still don't have an active anti-spyware/AV tool on my computer (the best I have is Microsoft Security Essentials, and I don't really believe in stock tools)

Your computer has lots of viruses and you need this obvious scam to fix it

(as this was meant to be its own thread, I shall edit: )

You know the "your computer has lots of viruses it you need this obvious scam to fix it" phone call? Have any of you ever gotten it? What did you do with the person on the other end? Has someone you know ever fallen for it?

(sorry for the hijacking, but the mods moved it)

I've gotten a similar one, that went something like this: "Hello, I'm from Microsoft, and I hear you've been having problems with your computer...? We'd like to offer you this fantastic deal to sort out your proble- *sound of me slamming phone down*".
Calls like that get me so mad.

90FC3C, I have merged your thread into this thread. It is on a similar topic already about viruses, and it wasn't older than 30 days.

I use Nort- oh, it's expired. So I don't really use anything at this point lol. Not that I need it though.

I did get a virus on another computer once, though. That was horrible. I think it was the Windows Antivirus Rampart, and I wanted to smash my computer into pieces. It took about a week to fix.

I had an eMachine last year, It had a virus, here's the thing, it was fine before the weekend, it was still fine when I turned it off, I didn't use it from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, when I booted it up, it seemed okay, then I reset it, and it didn't boot up as fast as it did, it took forever, my mother who is an amateur computer expert thought she fixed it, but she didn't we gave it to a friend to fix and they couldn't fix it... However, it did have a rough trot, (bumping mainly, NO DROPPING!). Either it was the bumping or a virus.

Symptoms were:
Slowing down to a crawl.
AntiVirus and Firewall turned off.
When re-installing AV it crashed.
"This Version of Windows is NOT genuine" message.

A few months after, I got the computer that I am using, THANKS TO AVAST! It has lasted longer and only had a few Viruses detected and removed, I also have MalwareBytes...

Since getting this PC, I have been more cautious about scanning and what I download...

I use Bitdefender on my computer haven't had many issues yet.

I once managed to get a virus when I was installing a shell theme on my computer. I forgot to make a restore point before installing this theme, so I had a very hard time removing the virus. It took me nearly an hour to have it removed completely. I thought the theme files would be reliable since they were hosted on deviantART, but I guess I was wrong. xD Another time I got a virus was when I visited an anime website. Fortunately, this one was easy to remove.

Normally if you're cautious about what sites you visit and what you download, you'll usually be less likely to get any viruses.
I actually think computer viruses aren't as bad as what they used to be...back in the day some computer viruses would literally kill your PC and everything on it.
Nowadays you'll only have to worry about very minor Trojans or male ware.
Personally I've used many free anti virus programs/firewalls and I think the standard MS firewall and MS security essentials is all you need. I've had problems with AVG so I don't use it anymore. I've had many issues of it not being able to update itself and having to re-install itself back on Windows XP.

I've had many viruses, bad ones which were very difficult to remove, usually on other people's computers or laptops. I've dealt with minor male ware to the classic sasser worm but I think the worst virus I had disabled Explorer.exe so you had no windows start bar or anything.
I just ended up formatting the drive and re-installing windows to fix that issue..

I'm mainly a gamer so I don't want anti-virus programs that hog resources. The only free anti virus program I would recommend is Avast or MS security essentials.
No need to pay for any anti-virus..it's basically a waste of money.

If you're worried about viruses, just make sure you back up your data and worst case happens, you'll just need to re-install windows :D !

Nothing, don't have a router. And I think *emulator name, dunno if it's ok to mention emulators* has a virus.

Norton is just a resource hog with tons of false positives... at least from my experience. I don't recommend it. I personally use AVG which has worked wonders for me. Other reliable free antivirus include Avast and Microsoft Security Essentials.

Back when I was less tech-savvy, I remember getting a virus from a fake virus download or something like that... They come with some of the most hideous backgrounds you'll ever see, such as the one below:

My desktop/laptop is an iron wall. I have all sorts of protection on it. Though I do admit a few malware....spyware..trojan horses yes. thats what they are called. I do admit a few of them have broke through my defenses but my microsoft security essentials managed to get rid of them all

My old laptop virus back in 2010 after downloading an infected file. The virus prevented me from opening many programs, though internet browsing seemed to work. It also replaced my desktop wallpaper with something similar to Seattle's post, iirc. It was mega annoying and I did not want to 100% wipe all of my files. I had homework on my laptop, after all. My brother finally managed to fix everything, though.

I always use Avast. :I

A friend of mine had that nasty fake FBI virus. Nothing could touch it... avast, spybot, malwarebytes... and the damn thing even booted up in safe mode. Basically what the virus, or more accurately, malware's goal was to scare the user that his/her laptop was found with illegally downloaded software. The notification is set as your background, with the FBI emblem as well, that tells you to pay $200 to some unknown thing to "unlock" the computer. Needless to say I've never encountered it before, and knew it was fake right away.

Basically I just said "screw this" and booted up in DOS-mode and ran ComboFix. That got rid of it pretty good. I found out later that my friend might've opened up a suspicious e-mail, and surfs suspicious porn sites.... ugh.

I haven't been using an anti-virus since 2009. I sometimes, like once every 3 to 6 months install malwarebytes, let it run the whole night, get rid of the weird files, uninstall and move on.

Guettin viruses is kind of hard if you are used to browsing certain websites and only and when you know yourself around computers, I guess... The last virus I had, I got it around 2006 or 2007, still had XP installed. I know I went to some forums asking for help, they gave me a .exe can't remember how it's called and that did it.

I just feel like anti viruses just aren't that efficient anyway :/ you know, having to update the list of threads every so often, if someone wants to infect you with a virus for personal reasons, they will... There are RAT's running around made in JAVA that you'd have to find manually.

Other than that, I'm used to formatting my drive every year or so.

The only way to be 100% protected from viruses, and malware is to not be connected to the internet at all, ever, and don't let your friends use their CDs, and flash drives on your computer. If you can't do that, well, check the sender of each email you get before opening it, stay away from free streaming sites, sites with pirated software and keys, file hosting sites, image sites, torrents, P2P programs, and don't install Java.

Sucks a little doesn't it? :P. You should ALWAYS keep an anti-virus installed, and have 24/7 protection on always for you (never more than one... otherwise conflicts can arise), and have an anti-malware scanner as well.

Avast anti-virus, Malwarebytes, and Spybot are some of the ones I use. Other more advanced ones I use are rKill (kills any suspicious tasks that prevent anti virus stuff from running), tdsskiller.. which gets rid of any nasty deep root-kits, and ComboFix.. which is pretty much a last resort, but very effective at cleaning up everything.. a little risky sometimes though.

I've gotten some viruses recently but was able to get rid of them.
I use a combination of Microsoft Security Essentials, Malwarebytes and Spybot. Seems to have worked so far.