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UNC81 - Thanks, I downloaded Malwarebytes Sunday and have run a full scan and several quick scans. It shows all is clean. Perhaps I'm just worried for no reason. Thanks for the local recommendations.
Aldamon - Thank you for the product recommendations - I will definately look into these.
Wheelsup - Thank you for the reminder about getting my 2000+ photos off onto a separate HD. I've known for a year that I should do this but have not. I noticed some deals in Sunday's paper.
Mia78 - HT stands for HijackThis. It's a program you can run which will provide you with a logfile of Running Processes, registry values, inifiles, hijacking, etc. then someone with some knowledge can decipher the report and address any damage malware may have created.
The virus didn't come from google search - it came from the link you clicked (I assume the restaurant website).
livesintriangle, you are absolutely right, the virus came from the restaurant link once I clicked on it. It's a small local Raleigh restaurant, I wonder if I should tell them??
Not the prettiest web site but it does get the job done... Knowing the proprietor (a personal friend of mine, though I've also consulted him professionally) I suspect you'll think similar thoughts if you meet him.
Family business in NE Raleigh, but they'll come to you if you want. I suspect they'd even quote you a fixed rate for the project, if you wanted, and should be able to come up with a better way to segment your computer, improve browsing security in the future, etc. if that would be useful for you.
I've run Norton 360, Windows Defender, Norton Security Scan, Malwarebytes and everything shows up clean, however I'm still skeptical and when I run HijackThis and review the report (which I have no idea what I'm looking at) I see what looks like forwarding, redirecting, and overriding going on when I use search or IE. I'm wondering what other script was changed or is defective.
I do not like Norton at all. I got more virus's with Norton then with the free version of AVG. Norton also tends to be a resource hog because of all the services it installs. And because of all those services it can be problematic to uninstall as well. I've become a personal fan of BitDefender. Also, are you running a Hardware or Software Firewall?? If you have a decent router all you should need to use is the HW firewall. Also, to be on the safe side you should clear your browser cache, browsing history, authenticated sessions, etc... after you are done surfing, expecially if you do alot of online shpping.
As per suggestions, Intrex is probably the best around, though I don't know their rates. I do my own systems' cleaning on a regular basis. If you do a backup of all the data and applications you want to keep I'm sure someone here would be willing to help you out, myself included.
livesintriangle, you are absolutely right, the virus came from the restaurant link once I clicked on it. It's a small local Raleigh restaurant, I wonder if I should tell them??
That might be a good idea - they might not know and I'm sure they'd want to fix it!
I like nod32 for AV. Norton and Symantec has come a long way in the past year and they have a darn good AV product. Symantec is very active in the security and cyber threats communities and I believe that helps them get a leg up in detection and signature definitions.
As for backups, I like carbonite, it's an online off site backup. I got 2 years for $75 and have 28gigs backed up there.
I do a complete reformat every 6 months or so. These days with the recovery discs that install everything it's so painless vs. having to load each driver separately. Just save your photos, music, files etc. to a DVD or external HD and copy them back over.
I also run CCleaner. It does not remove viruses, but it will clean up your registry and Internet cache history to get rid of the garbage and endless cookies stored on your system. You can choose which cookies to keep for sites that you know and use often.
WinPatrol will monitor your system registry and prevent any programs from changing it without your permission. This will help alert you if a program or virus tries to hack your registry which is the heart of the windows system environment.
I prefer Avast antivirus over AVG. You do have to register your use of the software to get a license key and renew it once a year, but it is free of charge for the basic personal home use only version. Avast does automatic program and virus definition updates and is a bit more user friendly than AVG.
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I've known for a year that I should do this but have not. I noticed some deals in Sunday's paper.
