Antivirus and stuff, How do you keep up

Well, I consider myself a good Virus hunter’s in finding and killing computer virus issues.  In my personal life, sometimes my friends will look to me their virus problems. I do not do it as often and most do not realize that it takes from 2-10 hours to find and fix computers with multiple issues.

The technician’s answer is to “wipe the harddrive and reinstall”. Like me, most do not want to give up a week or two of their time reinstalling all their programs they have had over the years. Sometimes, you do not have any other choice.

Typically, you will find virus and spyware on the Kids computer. There are many sites that in the background, unknown to the user, download Spyware or even worse a Trojan Horse. Now days, you have to be “loaded for bear” when trying to maintain a computer. Frankly, I am getting very tired of the whole thing. Some new threat pops up every day.

Just the other day, I was upgrading from Windows 2000 to XP and we did not unplug the computer when it was done, to install the service pack 2 and we got a real nasty back door hack virus. Hackers have scanning tools out there running 24/7 looking for unsuspecting vulnerabilities.

The scanning for vulnerabilities also applies to your web site and ecommerce servers also, but is not as rampant.
Our company uses a great third-party service by the name of ScanAlert, with another visual tool called HACKERSAFE for our customers Internet and Ecommerce Servers.

It is a trust mark that people have come to rely on and feel better about buying on the web.

There is not just one program fits all for your anti virus-spyware solution for your computer. In recent months, I have had direct experience with Windows Vista. I must say that Windows Vista really sucks. I understand that Dell corporation decided for the first time to roll back and offer XP for those that did not want to be testers for the Vista program.

Two months ago, I purchased a new computer loaded with stuff and well,….let’s just say Vista made it difficult to do anything. It is not ready for the business environment an is ok for home, but a bear if you want to setup a network and wireless components, which is becoming more popular.

Back to the Virus issues. There are Three main programs I have used, Norton, TrendMicro, and SpyBot, and the waining Adware. (might be returning). Individually, they do a terrible job. Collectively, they do a great job.

The combo I like is Norton and Spybot. Yes, Norton is a bloated program that is a resource hog, but it is widely supported and monitored. The next to have installed is Spybot Search and Destroy, in the advanced mode only, in the advanced mode only,(be careful as there are look alike companies that can cause real issues and further infect your computer).

Our Master tech , Jame Chi found a program that he has been using for years and says that it found nasty virus no other computer could find it is called Kaspersky AV . It is fairly inexpensive, like $80 bucks for 5 users. It is not a hog like Trend or Norton.

Also, if you get stuck and you cannot install an AV on your computer, then go to Trend Micro and try the remote scanning tool at TrendMicro.com called House Call
Good lucking hunting,

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