Thank you, Karen and Emmit, for taking the time to respond. I think I'll try Emmit's Vipre suggestion next week, and see how that works for me. It would be great to feel secure AND not have a gizillion programs to have to do it with.
Cathy Grimes ----- Original Message ----- From: [email protected] To: RBASE-L Mailing List Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 7:19 AM Subject: [RBASE-L] - Re: Security Programs Cathy: Until this thing happened to me, I would have recommended Webroot's SpySweeper, both the antivirus and anti-spyware. Not so sure now. I used to have Norton antivirus and various free anti-spyware, but Norton made my computer so slow. I uninstalled Norton and all my free antispyware and put in SpySweeper and my computer was much faster. I have also read that you should never run >1 real-time virus or spyware at the same time because they interfere with each other. You're okay if your programs are not real-time (ie, you just run them to scan what you already have, rather than the programs' trying to stop things before they get there). When I was researching my problem, quite a few people suggested that you use Malawarebyte's program to clean up. If ComboFix didn't work, I was going to try that. However, it's just my opinion that free programs aren't as good as the ones that require a modest annual subscription fee. As mentioned by others, I also have turned off Windows Firewall and gone with the one on my router (not that it helped me here, I guess). This is the first virus I have EVER gotten so I guess I shouldn't complain??? I was impressed with Webroot's tech support. Was on hold a moderate amount of time, they would break in periodically with a message to tell me what number I was in line. I called twice, both people were easy to talk to, easy to understand, very knowledgeable and weren't rushing me off, stayed on the line with me until I received the emails they were sending me ... First time I ever had to call them (have had SpySweeper installed for 2 1/2 yrs) and it was a good tech experience. Karen Though I have not had the problem below (at least not to my knowledge), I would love to get all your advice on the best protection programs for anti-virus, anti-spyware/malware, firewall, etc. so I have the best chance of avoiding future problems. I am a single user and am hoping there are some good free (or not too expensive annual fee) programs that will protect me. I have Windows XP Professional on new computer purchased a few months ago. At that time, my Windows/drivers were updated by paid tech guy. But I am not getting any additional Windows updates as every single time I have done this in the past, it has completely wrecked my computer (and several other friends have had same experience - HATE Microsoft weaknesses). Anyway, I am currently using only Windows firewall (have router), which I don't really know how to configure. Used to have Norton - HATE Norton as caused more hassle/problems than helped, so didn't reinstall in new computer. I also have Avast! Anti-virus, Spybot, Spywareblaster, and Malwarebyte's anti-malware (all free programs - but, again, I really don't know enough to use them other than with their defaults). I also use Tune-Up Utilities and Ultimate Troubleshooter to clean up and check what is running. I have Privacy Control, but newest version of that continually removes all my passwords from email, and they don't know how to fix that, so will probably remove as I don't remember my passwords and have to use Restore to get them back (as I did with another of their programs, DriverControl, which totally messed up my printer drivers and couldn't fix after tons of emails to them and 8+ hours on phone/email with Hewlett Packard - Restore didn't help there). Will the programs I'm using keep me safe enough? Are there others any of you would recommend? Hope this is an ok question to ask this group. Cathy Grimes Huntington Beach, Calif
