Hi Bob,

What happened to this person is exactly what I was talking about. They had their AV program, it didn’t detect a virus, they opened the attachment, they got in trouble. Also no backups which makes it worse.

I have been using Imaging programs for quite a while, started with the first Ghost, then tried Drive Image, True Image, (all versions of each program) plus others. Found what I think is the best of them all http://www.bootitng.com/ it’s simple never fails, and cost less than half than the other programs. System Restore can’t be trusted, just do a search on Google “System Restore Fails” to see. With a good backup you don’t have to worry at all if you run into something that screwed up your PC. I very rarely uninstall any program I just restore to any image I have made in the past.

One other note is that in all the cases I see where people are getting a virus or tricked into clicking on a link stems from some email they got. I would like to know of some cases where people were not exploring the dark places of the net who picked up something which screwed up their PC. A firewall or router is more important to have than AV software for protection while on the net, and when it comes to email use some common sense, it’s beed told over and over again don’t open attachments.

I guess with all this just starting with my question about using avast for protection while on the web is somewhat answered for myself anyway. In that as long as I use a router, firewall, don’t go to the dark alleys of the net, have my PC up to date with security patches, it’s not likely I’ll pick up something. Even if I did, I would just restore the PC.

PS: here’s a site that has some visual tutorials of the program I use. http://www.heffy.com/

J