Clueless Newbie!

Good afternoon (depending on wherever you are )

Ive been doing the rounds with a particular problem ive got but I thought it only right to say hi here first before I barrage you with my PC problem...so hi! Oh, and given my cluelessness when it comes to anything computer related, I may be spending a little time here!

 

Thanks! I think I need all the help I can get...ive not had a PC for that long and most of my learning is through trial and error (mostly error) so its cool to finally find a forum that I can understand!

 

bonoboy,

Hi, if you have any type of malware problem check out the Spyware Removal forum linked on the MajorGeeks.com website. It's an excellent article and I learned a lot from it.

 

Welcome to Major Geeks :major

 

Thanks guys! Im currently ploughing through all the info you've got on here...already learned a bit about cleaning up my system, downloaded a very useful cleaner program and spyware/adware was my next port of call!

 

A few things:
Freeware antivirus programs
AVG AntiVirus (A solid contender with the right price )
AOL Active Virus Shield (A Kaspersky-based antivirus that knocks out both viruses and spyware)
Norman Malware Cleaner (Highly useful both against viruses and spyware.)

Freeware antispyware programs
Spybot Search & Destroy (This one is an antimalware toolbox. As long as you don't use the TeaTimer, you can get a lot of good use out of it.)
Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2007 Free (A very good scanning engine.)
AVG AntiSpyware (Another good one for scanning. It has a 30-day trial for the real-time protection, but you keep the scanner when that's up.)
Trend Micro Hijack This (As long as you're careful, you can get rid of a lot of annoying malware with this. It's not an easy program to use, as you need to get logs analysed to interpret them properly.)

SmitfraudFix (This one stops most Smitfraud-based malware cold.)
SmitRem (Another fix for Smitfraud malware.)

Online Scanners
Trend Micro HouseCall 6.6 (I use this monthly to check for malware, as it also lets one know what updates one needs.)
Kaspersky Virus Scanner (Another good online scanning tool.)

All the best firewalls I've found are mentioned in Top Freeware Picks.

 

A great place to start if you are looking for freeware

Must have FREE downloads
http://www.majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=20