Hey I need the help of computer smart people. is there a program that I can buy that will clean my computers of viruses and such, because I figure instead of wasting money paying someone I could just buy a program so I wont have to keep relying on other people especially when I need the computer for school and sometimes they make you wait like 4-5 days.

Umm I'm assuming your pc/laptop is not infected currently. If so I suggest Kaspersky anti-virus http://www.kaspersky.com/ or Nod32 http://www.eset.com/ either of these should protect your computer well.

The weakest link to any computer vulnerability is the user, so I would suggest you learn some fundamentals on how to protect your computer and not just rely on the software alone.

i have a mac and people told me that i don't need an anti-virus protection program. Is that true?

yes and no

no one writes viruses for macs, because barely anyone who uses a mac will normally encounter the virus.

however when one is made, they are more often than not system crippling on a mac.

ill put it this way.

on a mac by the time you may encounter a virus, its probably already time to upgrade to a new computer anyway. so paying that extra 250-400$ for a antivirus (through the computers lifetime) is probably a waste of money.

i find microsoft security essentials to be a rather nice lightweight protection if you scan periodically.

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

otherwise malwarebytes does the job rather well too, free or paid.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/


and just from personal experience, having multiple protection programs tend to clash with each other and actually cause some problems. for that reason i keep to mse alone, but either works just as well.

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"Rule No. 1 is, don't sweat the small stuff. Rule No. 2 is, it's all small stuff." - Robert Eliot, Writer

"Oh boy, here we go...again." - Israfel

I'm getting too old....

Lol warez. I'd check demonoid for some stuff if I'd need any
protection for this piece of junk, but since I wouldn't care even
if this thing blew up, I won't.
Kaspersky has gained a lot of good reputation lately.
Them Russians know how to beat viruses. (Well, they probably
even made them themselves. :----D)
As you are a turtleneck, you probably won't need
any. I've never done a virus for Mac and never will.

I second this.

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"“That's the difference between me and the rest of the world!
Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria!” "

thanks
I am a kinda clueless when it comes to these things. Just get by from what i read in forums, etc.
Wish they would teach these things in pc courses and not only the usual microsoft package - which is useless since i now have a mac
Anyone know a website which helps to educate dummies like me about the web and cool softwares that are must-have/know ? i really envy pc-nerds/know-alls

for the most part you can use whatever anti-virus you have to scan your computer for problems. i use AVG simply because its free and it works well for me (though if your running xp still youll proboly have to get an anti-malware software too). Also the most useful tool i use for viruses is system restore. With this you can take your computer back to a time when it wasn't so f**ked up.

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I'm afraid that system restore is a temporary solution only as if the computer is still infected (or you restore at a time that was infected) you'll only be ok for a sort amount of time , as the viruses and trojan files aren't deleted via restore. Avg is ok for viruses but no go when it comes to trojan and spyware. Malware bytes or SUPERAntiSpyware are recommended for those.
Personally i use kaspersky and i've had no problem for the past 2-3 years. And that's pretty good , considering i search the net and download torrents of anything you can imagine dailly

For free software, avast is pretty cool but please add Malwarebytes and super anti spyware with it and the comp will run in a pretty top condition...

..I didnt have an antivirus when I got a new vista laptop, and Norton has an annoying nature to press you buy it until you deinstall it so I didnt activate a free for a month norton that I got wth the laptop...quite understandably, somehow a very stubborn adware installed itself into my laptop and after almost being duped into paying for a McFee antivirus I didnt receive after paying through paypal who reimbursed my payment when I didnt receive the goods, I settled for this trio. (Microsoft's advice was to format your hard drive which I couldnt as I had non-backed up data in it)

Anyway, finally I am satisfied with these three and best part Avast can give you bootscan and the updates automatically everytime you log on. So far, hasnt slowed my laptop so I am happy...I like Avast more than Kapersky which is my university computer antivirus (paid for by the University)..it suspects every b****y program on my computer, even programs I created, as virus...

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I support Avast (and it's free!). It's the best one out there that I could find.

As for Malwarebytes, when I tried to use it, it died on me. I wouldn't get it. Same goes for Spybot, since lately it's not been catching the viruses as much.

Another one that I recently found was Unhackme by Greatis. It has a trial period so you can test it out. Gets rid of pesky rootkits.

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I agree with Avast cus it's free and ok, spybot is garbage that is overall ineffective, malwarebytes doesn't work i had it for the longest time and it didn't do crap, kapersky doesn't work that well either and all the microsoft stuff is also garbage it's wayyy to selective. I use ESET NOD32 Antivirus now but it's expensive so all in all if you want something good you gotta pay up, but ESET is great it always catches cheap viruses and spyware that get threw downloads or even just going to a site which no other virus software i use has been truly able to do, also AVG is garbage i used it for awhile and got a bad virus and it didn't do anything to stop it.

PC
I LOVE Super Anti Spyware
When I was on my pc desktop I would use it all the time on super difficult viruses my technologically inept father would manage to get. I also recommend it to all my friends who have little brothers/sisters/parents anyone who isn't really careful. It's really useful. My dad does a scan once a week before going to bed and we have had no problems in a year. (Which for us is a miracle)

If you download a lot of torrents I'd also suggest downloading Spybot because it has a great feature where you can check the files for viruses before installing. Just keep in mind that most keygens/cracks are considered viruses.

Mac
Macs don't get viruses and I will tell you why.

1)Why make a virus if it won't spread? So few people actually buy macs so it isn't worth it compared to the effect it could make on PC's.

2) Macs are RIDICULOUSLY hard to crack and code. This makes it hard to customize your computer but since the coding is so secret hackers would have to work twice as hard on the virus. So why bother spend more time on something that won't even get as far?

Definitely the only thing Macs are good for.


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From the very popular "Download.cnet.com"

There you will see AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition at top download. Spybot is also nice. Avira is good too. These are all free and very popular among computer users.

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