artlover Loc: NM

My desktop PC was completely shut down. I was one of the 1.2 Billion. Ran security each and every morning but wound up with numerous viruses and had to have PC cleaned out.

Could not login. Never had this happen in 20 years.

Learned a lot from this experience. :thumbup:

davefales Loc: Virginia

What anti-virus/web security program do you use? I may want to avoid it.

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

I recommend Norton Internet Security - it updates virus definitions regularly and has picked up a number of viruses and I have not had any serious problems in years. My daughter, who is not as careful as I, has picked up some of these newer viruses that can be tough to get rid of - they attempt to block Norton so you have to restart the computer in Safe Mode and then run the antivirus program to get rid of them.

Also - don't ever download "Free" programs no matter how tempting unless they are from a well-known source. A few weeks ago I violated my own rule on this - I downloaded a "free program" to add some transitions to PowerPoint, and immediately had my home page change and started getting tons of pop-up ads that wouldn't stop. I had to run a special Norton "Power Clean" to get rid of it. Also be careful not to open up e-mail attachments unless you know exactly what is in them. Any e-mail with a generic greeting with an attachment may be a virus, so for example, an e-mail from a friend that says "Check this out" with an attachment gets deleted immediately and I will send the friend an e-mail asking if they intended to send me something and if so, they need to tell me exactly hat it is. Viruses tend to multiply by sending themselves to everyone on the computer's contact list and attaching themselves to a random file which is attached to the e-mail. The only time I foolishly opened a virus package was when I received an e-mail from a patient who is a liver transplant recipient. The e-mail said: "Tell me what you think of this" and attached to it was her file labeled "My living will". I opened it up and read it, and responded that I thought it met all the requirements, and she asked me what I was talking about.... Closer inspection of the file showed that it was actually "My living will.doc.exe" which although it opened up as a document, is clearly an executable program! I immediately did a virus scan and found and deleted the virus.

cockney greg Loc: London E17

I use the same as Steve above but had to get Malwarebytes anti malware to be rescued.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/lp/lp4/?gclid=CN-Xqd2npMACFUXLtAodljkAtA

C.R. Loc: United States of Confusion

i would rather have a virus than norton. norton has always been a resource hog and the best way i know of to slow a machine down, way down. but use what you want, malware bytes paid active version is very good

ottopj Loc: Annapolis, MD USA

I've had good luck with Kaspersky for over 5 years.

texasdan78070 Loc: Texas Hill Country

I just bought and downloaded Vipre last night. It was rated 98% by C-Net. On sale for $29.95. I used to use AVG free and never had problems till very recently. The repair shop removed it and gave me Avast. Had to take it back in 2 weeks for virus removal again. No more free for me. And Vipre does NOT slow my computer down at all. I'll know more in a year!!

artlover Loc: NM

Went to Best Buy and they fixed the PC and used WEBROOT.
I've been using Norton for past 6-7 yrs. I did not back up my Windows 7 Home Premium. Never had any problems.

But of course SF gets its 1st earthquake in 25 yrs.

So the shutdown was my EQ.

artlover Loc: NM

BTW: Webroot has worked just fine.