I haven’t been around in a while due to unexpected surgery, the holidays, and what have you. But, for those who were so kind to help me out, just wanted to update you that I did get a new computer (just finished getting it up and running today) with Windows SP3, and it’s fully protected with the latest versions of avast, Super AntiSpywear, Malware Bytes, Sypbot S&D, and Ad-aware. Oh, and Spywear Blaster, too. Currently just using my Windows firewall, but will be doing something different with that soon. My old computer is set up elsewhere to use as a backup, if ever needed.
I have (and am) learning a lot here, and I appreciate all the help.
Good to see you back and hopefully in good health.
You can get too much of a good thing though when it comes to security software and you seem to spend your time as a slave to keeping them up to date. Personally I fee that AdAware is a waste of hard disk space when compared to any of the others. I feel two anti-spyware applications like SAS and MBAM should be enough, however in the free versions they are both on-demand scanners. So Spybot S&D if you enable it has limited resident protection.
You should address the firewall one as a matter of urgency.
Whilst the windows XP firewall is usually good at keeping your ports stealthed (hidden) it provides no outbound protection and you should consider a third party firewall.
Any malware that manages to get past your defences will have free reign to connect to the internet to either download more of the same, pass your personal data (sensitive or otherwise, user names, passwords, keylogger retrieved data, etc.) or open a backdoor to your computer, so outbound protection is essential.
There are many freeware firewalls such as, Comodo (care required now it is a suite not to install the anti-virus element), PCTools Firewall Plus, Jetico, etc. - Zone Alarm free works fine with avast and has a reasonably friendly user interface, however, the free version is becoming bloated with trial ware and is also crippled as far as outbound protection goes In the Program Control, configuration area, the slider will only goes as far as Medium protection, if you want more you have to buy the Pro version.
I found that by installing vista firewall control,a tip I picked up here.It turned vistas third rate one way firewall into a first rate two way firewall.Its made by Sphinx if I remember right.Or as David has said there are other firewalls.I just found it easier to add vista firewall control than turn off the windows one and find another one.It was a very easy install to.Mine was freeware so I shpuld think it will still be the same.I think,but am not sure that I got mine from C.Net.Glad your up and about again.
Thanks everyone for your support and well-wishes! Did have a little bit of a complication, but I believe all is well now (except now my cat is sick!). But, she seems to be improving now, too.
Computer is doing fine, except the last few times I’ve turned it on, it’s hung up, appearing to be when avast! is loading. I have to turn it off with the computer button, wait a few seconds, turn it back on and it’s fine. Maybe I’m just not waiting long enough, but it does appear to be hanging the last few days for some reason. Will be running some scans and such today to see if there’s any bug causing it.
Thanks, DavidR! After the boot scan I just had avast! do, it did fine. But I might go ahead and make this change instead of waiting to see if it does it again.
Personally I would monitor it for a few days to see if it does it again, before you do this as effectively if the current intermittent problem resolved itself you wouldn’t know if it was this ‘delay’ which resolved the problem. That is the problem when chasing intermittent problems.
The clue could have been in my signature ;D it is the initials/abbreviation of MalwareBytes AntiMalware, I don’t believe it is compatible with winME (or rather ME isn’t).
I am neither a guru nor an expert. However many posts on this forum do attest to Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware being one of the leading anti-spyware products currently on the market.
Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware has support for Window$ 2000, XP (32-bit), and Vista (32-bit) according to their website. Perhaps just install it and see! As long as you don’t activate the resident module, it should probably return an error message if it’s not compatible!
However I advise you to follow the guidance of the gurus and experts on this forum (eg. Polonus). They really are extremely helpful and friendly!
Thank you, ardvark!! God Bless you and yours as well. I love using smilies; I think they can add a little more expression to the kinda one-dimensional posts and e-mails!
DavidR, thanks so much for the suggestion on delaying avast! startup until after other things have loaded. Haven’t had one problem since I made that change!
The snow we have in spades at the moment and that little bit (8-10 inches overnight in some areas) was enough to virtually bring the country to a standstill. Boy am I glad I’m not a self employed Parcels Courier any more, I did that for 3 1/2 years and we had some snow got stuck once (dug my self out) but I never missed a delivery.
