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spyware

Another plea for you to use Mozilla Firefox

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photo credit: khoogheem

Over the past six months, the spyware problems infiltrating both Windows XP and Vista has become almost mythical. Spyware is the junk that gets into your computer and slows it down, prevents antivirus software from doing its job, halts Windows updates, can disable your CDROM and/or USB drives, and much more. The vast majority of it turns out to be self-induced. By self-induced, I mean that the user willingly downloaded ring tones, free music, free wallpaper, screensavers, registry cleaners, or other junk software. Even with the best security software on the planet installed on your computer system, agreeing to install junk software circumvents your security and the problems begin.

How can you prevent it? First start by protecting your system properly with the tools I have listed on every page here at HelpMeRick.com. You will find them in Read More »Another plea for you to use Mozilla Firefox

Reunion spam makes a comeback

Social engineering strikes again.

Last spring, a spam posing as a reunion invitation made its rounds around the Internet. The spam/virus gets spread by an unsuspecting and less than alert computer user opens an email supposedly from a class mate inviting them to a reunion. Once the email is opened, a root-kit (hard to detect spyware/virus hybrid) gets deployed on the person’s computer and begins to spread itself from there.

This scenario repeats itself hundreds of thousands times over a couple of days and eventually infects millions of computers around the world.

A variant of the very same ploy started to make its rounds again this year coming to a crescendo over the past couple of weeks with millions more people duped.

Rick’s Answers his email Videocast – 025

Questions this week ranged from anti-spyware recommendations all the to a strange singing Christmas card that played even after the computer was shut down. This week’s questions brought to you by Dave, Kristina, USSRover, AmaLia, Dave, Mary, Jessica, Bob, Mike, Gloria, and Kent.

Correcting some spyware infections with an often overlooked tool

Some of the nastiest spyware infections can be dealt with easier than previously thought if you try the following steps immediately after becoming infected:

  1. Shut off your high speed modem OR simply unplug the Ethernet cable connecting your computer to the modem or router
  2. Restart the computer in Safe Mode and attempt to run a disk cleanup from the Accessories –> System Tools menu or use the CCleaner or Cleanup program if you have them installed.
  3. Then go to the accessories menu and run System Restore. Choose a date at least two weeks prior to the infection and restore the computer.
  4. After the computer restarts, IF the restore was successful (and it will tell you so), run a full disk scan with your antivirus software and any anti-spyware software you have loaded
  5. Restart your computer again, and this time connect back to the Internet
  6. Update your antivirus and antispyware products and run another full scan

I have had good success with this routine if the infection is caught quick enough (usually within a day or so).

What kind of computer do 3 teenagers use?

An extremely slow and sick computer!

Today, again, I ran across a family who has multiple teenagers (3 in this case) who use a computer that has become polluted with spy and adware. I see this situation again and again, week after week. This computer was less than 2 months old!

Give the typical teenager a Windows based computer (doesn’t matter if it is XP or Vista) and within weeks (sometimes hours) the computer is almost useless. Parents always ask me the next logical question, “Why did it happen?”

Rick’s Answers his email Videocast – 012

This week I answer some questions about faxing in Vista, email problems, security software, removing spyware and much more…brought to you by the questions from Guido, Shirley, Tina, Cindy, Ticia, James, Jo, Mariane, Margie, Sandra, Jackie, Nellie, DJ and John.

AVG stumbles again

Admittedly, Grisoft has not had a great summer with the roll out of their newest product, AVG 8. They tried to force the upgrade on users a little too quickly with quick deadlines. However, almost five months after the release of the new version, I still find users who haven’t upgraded yet, but Grisoft is still updating the older version.

The installation of the new version included some new features that are designed to scan links for bad web sites in your searches. This feature caused some problems for Windows Vista users and even caused some problems for email users.

Earlier this summer, AVG’s upgrade servers downloaded a bad update to many computers that caused an error that confused and dazed many users.

More Linux success stories

I want to keep singing the praises of an operating system that I used to make fun of on our show; Linux. In partial defense of myself, Linux traditionally has been known as the geeks operating system, and a user needed to be permanently attached to a forum for help and have an affinity for the command prompt or as its known in Linux, the terminal.

Great digital photography debate topics

Technology is no different than politics in that there are a variety of topics that people have opinions on. While you may not know much about these topics now, what you know about them can have a great impact on knowing who to listen to when it comes to learning more about digital photography and related topics.

PC vs. Mac:

The Mac people will tell you that Macs are better for graphics, easier to use more stable.

Warning: Your computer may be infected with viruses, spyware and exortionware

Extortionware? What is extortionware.

I have seen at least 10 computers in the past two weeks that have recently been infected with extortionware – viruses and spyware that infect your system by pretending to be an antivirus or other security program.

With names like Windows Antivirus, WinAntivirus, XP Antivirus 20008, etc. these programs appear to look and feel official. However, they are some of the worst virus or virus-like programs I have ever dealt with.

These viruses often come onto a computer via a pop-up advertisement that says looks like a Windows security or antivirus warning that reads something like, “Your computer is infected with one or more viruses and spyware programs. Click here to run a full scan.”