Good Virus/Malware detection

Hey All!

I have a friend who is seeing some issues in her Win 7 laptop -- for one thing she apparently can't get the Start button to function properly.

She has Norton AV, she says she renewed it. She lives out-of-town so I can't sit down and troubleshoot things. I suggested she get something to scan the computer for worms/virus/malware, but I don't have a name.

So, does anyone have a suggetion for a good free scanner/detector that she could try?

When I was a Windows user I used AVG free with good results. Anything but Norton!

Hey, thanks, I'll pass it on to her!

used to do a lot of downlaoding and came across a lot of nasty stuff. After testing here iare a few programs that actually work and theyre fre to boot.

Avira
Avast (I currently use this) Runs active in background and auto update. not resocure intensive
Malwarebytes (Malware removal scanner) manually started
Spybot (very effective malicious program scanner)
Iknow Process scanner (scan for hidden background running programs doing bad things)

Between those I've been able to clean just about anything from viruses, worms, and malware

Things that failed:
Avira (once or twice it missed what avast picked up)
Norton (not on my box but on everyone elses box I had to clean)
Mcaffee (same as above)
AVG (ineffective active background scanning let a few malware activate, may be improved)

kjonnnn wrote in post #14525349
If you want to help her actually. Both of you download Teamviewer. You can go on her computer remotely and see whats going on. That's how I help folks out. Its free.

No software gets EVERYthing. I use AVG, "Advance System Care", Adaware, Malwarebytes, and Search and Destroy. I've never had an issue. AVG runs all the time, and I regularly use the others to scan. All are Free.

Hey, thanks! I have AVG on the laptop my daughter uses and it seems to work fine, I have Avast running on this workstation. This gal has a job and classes and a boyfriend as well, we'll see what help I can be (her boyfriend may need to "take charge"!).

Another AVG user, never had a problem since I switched. I started with the free version then ended up purchasing the full version and it covers both my pc's. Cheap insurance really. BTW I lost a HDD once because Norton did not pick up a worm!

If you want in depth unbiased reviews from a neutral source here you go.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/en/co​mparativesreviews

AVG is great.. Also, don't use Internet Explorer, or Outlook... FireFox and Thunderbird are much less susceptible to virus attack...

Firefox is on life support and most Firefox users have moved back to IE9 or switched to Chrome.

As for Outlook it does not exist in Windows 7 which means you must be running XP which is way behind the times of modern day computing.

Malwarebytes and/or Combo Fix (run in safe mode)

isoMorphic wrote in post #14526313
Firefox is on life support and most Firefox users have moved back to IE9 or switched to Chrome.

As for Outlook it does not exist in Windows 7 which means you must be running XP which is way behind the times of modern day computing.

Ummmm..... Office 2010, which includes Outlook, runs quite well on Windows7... I was not referring to Outlook Express...

Also, Chrome would work quite well...

And I don't think 35.8% for FireFox, vs 38.3% for Chrome means "life support" for FireFox...

Hey, thanks for all this input! I think I'll send her and her boyfriend a link to this thread and let them wade through it!

I've been using IE9, Chrome, Firefox, and occasionally Safari on my Win7x64 machine. None of them seem perfect, but Oh Well!

One nice thing about having multiple browsers is that when sometimes one hangs for a bit another is there at a click!

Download Ubuntu and create a new OS that is near virus free. Proceed to use for everything web browsing oriented..

tricky500 wrote in post #14526793
Download Ubuntu and create a new OS that is near virus free. Proceed to use for everything web browsing oriented..

Heh! I though about a Linux dual boot a bunch of years ago. I just have too much stuff that I use pretty much all day/night long and I would'n't want to go with a whole other setup!

That being said I was a happy Unix user, before Windows and during the early days of Windows!

However, I don't think I'm gonna suggest Linux to my friend! She's not "geeky"!

tonylong wrote in post #14524830
Hey All!

I have a friend who is seeing some issues in her Win 7 laptop -- for one thing she apparently can't get the Start button to function properly.

She has Norton AV, she says she renewed it. She lives out-of-town so I can't sit down and troubleshoot things. I suggested she get something to scan the computer for worms/virus/malware, but I don't have a name.

So, does anyone have a suggetion for a good free scanner/detector that she could try?

In addition to the installed scanners(av, malware, and firewall which should be locked down) she should also use a non hard drive based scanner. Some nasties can hide from hard drive installed items. So, cd/dvd/usb thumb drives are another handy tool. No single tool will catch every nasty every time. A single tool will usually catch most nasties, most of the time. Firewall, drives, email, and internet/chat applications should all be always scanned.


You do need to keep any av, spyware, worms, malware checkers current.
"Current" means daily or weekly updates, not monthly or whenever.
While you can update the definitions/dictionari​es, the computer must be on to fetch them and then use them to scan the system.
(Seems obvious, but a good friend hadn't realized the computer had to be turned on to scan and that updates should be fetched before the scan. :rolleyes
Yes, the system may drastically slow down during the scans.


You might consider:
The Trinity Rescue Kit CD
System Rescue CD
Ultimate Boot CD (tools, av, malware, etc can also create a USB drive following link on page)
Sleuthkit & Autopsy Browser projects- Former is the tools, latter is graphical user interface for tools
ultimate-boot-cd-on-a-usb-stick

Shields Up! security testing site to check for leaking firewalls. Spouse likes this one, because even I can run the various tests and report issues back it finds. Even has explanations of the issues and how to fix the settings to resolve them.

If she travels or uses hotels/free hotspots, and so on, definitely get that firewall fully functional. Spouse has heard tales of "better" hotels with no security on their hotspots. Spouse prefers to change all passwords upon arriving home in case a password or the laptop was compromised on the business trip. Conferences are another favorite target for black hats.

Many of those CD kits for fixing and rescue are linux-based, but they can scan windows-based systems without a linux geek present.

Team viewer, go to meeting, or some similar programs are used by spouse to troubleshoot parents' computers from a day away. Faster internet access improves the usability.