oh man, not a virus!! D: Page 2

Started by Meganium July 18th, 2013 3:29 PM
  • 2152 views
  • 38 replies

disciplish

supreme meme machine

Male
under the rpt floorboards
Seen June 17th, 2020
Posted April 13th, 2020
880 posts
10.7 Years
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.
homestuck fan club | ethersworn | minimalist theme

PkmnTrainerElio

♥ Jung Hoseok, Kim Namjoon and Park Jimin ♥

Age 28
Male
Alola
Seen January 1st, 2023
Posted November 1st, 2022
819 posts
12 Years
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...
"Hello, I'm your hope, you're my hope, I'm J-Hope!" - J-Hope

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"Treat people with kindness." - Harry Styles

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Hiatus

Seen 6 Days Ago
Posted July 24th, 2021
12,283 posts
10.8 Years
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.
Age 32
Male
United Kingdom
Seen October 28th, 2013
Posted September 23rd, 2013
342 posts
15.6 Years
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 !

Aeroblast

Male
Basement
Seen February 25th, 2017
Posted February 25th, 2017
4,173 posts
9.8 Years
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:

xseed

Reality? Or a dream?

Age 29
Male
Miississippi
Seen December 3rd, 2013
Posted November 13th, 2013
441 posts
9.7 Years
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
Looking toward a brighter future

TwilightBlade

All dreams are but another reality.

Age 31
Female
Florida
Seen 8 Hours Ago
Posted 5 Days Ago
7,098 posts
16 Years
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
Male
Seen January 2nd, 2014
Posted November 28th, 2013
180 posts
11.6 Years
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.

danks_

NOCH EIN BIER, BITTE!

Male
Darmstadt, Germany
Seen December 12th, 2013
Posted October 2nd, 2013
106 posts
9.9 Years
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.
Male
Seen January 2nd, 2014
Posted November 28th, 2013
180 posts
11.6 Years
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.