Would SOMEONE Help Me????

Viruses and worms
1

First of all…IM REALLY new to this anti-virus stuff, and to be honest, REALLY don’t know what I’m doing!

I downloaded this avast home 4 thingy. It DID work. It told me I had 28 Win32 things and RECOMMENDED that I put them in the chest. I did. The problem is (and I’m on dial-up), my screens are STILL freezing up, I’m SURPRISED it hasnt freezed me up while Im typing this!!! So… I KNOW I have something still in my computer, don’t I? I mean, thats what lead me to get this in the first place, and I was right! Ive ran it since I downloaded it 3 days ago, EVERY day, and that virus cleaner thingy too! ALL times It says that there were NO viruses found…( not since the original day and I put THOSE in that chest thing)

Is there something ELSE that I should be doing? I clear out my History and cookies EVERY day anyway…EVEN before this download.

I know the difference between dial-up slow and “some type of bug” slow!

Someone/ANYONE have any advice???

2

What os do you have? Do you have a firewall? Any anti-spyware protection? Spyware can use up a lot of system resources that can cause freeze ups. How much RAM do you have. We need this info to help you.

Download A Squared & check for spyware/malware. http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/

Run post results of hijackthis. http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html

3

By freeze does it lock the mouse pointer also and how do you resolve it ?

A freeze can happen for many reasons and infection would be low down in my scale of guilt.

Tell us something about your system, Operating system, who much RAM memory, CPU, what other security programs do you have ?

Do you have a lot of programs running when this happens ?
I would suggest you only have essential programs running on boot, others can be closed when you aren’t using them.

As further confirmation of your system being clean, if you haven’t already got this software (freeware), download, install, update and run it, preferably in safe mode.

  1. Ewido, a.k.a. avg anti-spyware If using winXP. or a-Squared free if using win98/ME.
4

I downloaded this avast 4 home ting as as I type, I am downloading avg.why I dont know. Just hoping it will help. WHERE do I go to find the RAM for you??

Sorry, Im too computer uneducated to answer, but Im a quick study! Just tell me what and WHERE to do/go!

5

When I say freeze…the mouse thingy.I cant use.that hr glass thingy is on FOREVER and I HAVE to turn the comp OFF by where its plugged up at to start ALL over again!!! Thats the ONLY way I can TRY to start again! Im downloading the AVG thing now!
Anything else? Im waiting on intructions as to find out that RAM ? and WHERE do I go to get that info to give to you?
sorry!

6

The reason you are downloading it is you questioned if there might be something else on your system "I KNOW I have something still in my computer, don’t I? "

We are suggesting downloading another program for in effect a second scan with a tool that looks for other things.

Find the My Computer icon on your screen, right click and select properties and all the information we asked about should be there, see image.

7

heres what I copied and pasted:

This is what I got when I did what u said.104 bytes (104 bytes)
4.00 KB (4,096 bytes)

This is what I got when I went to my comp and went to view system informationIts screen looked like the one u showed.: Celeron (r) cpu 2.00 GHZ,
199GHz, 256MB of Ram

also:
microsoft windows xp
home edition
version 2002
service pack 2

DOES THIS help??? I hope!

8

Well your processor is fine you are a little short on RAM and you would see an improvement in performance with another 256MB taking you to 512 even better if you can get more.

With this relatively low RAM figure you really need to be very selective and not run lots of programs at the same time.

Being infected before you installed avast is going to have compromised your system, so running the other application to see if anything else can be found is essential.

Have (or did) you another AV installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ?

Do you have a firewall program, if so what is it ?

As you can see with these additional security applications 256MB is really, really low, RAM is relatively cheap and would really help your system.

9

Yeah…I downloaded that AVG thing, and ran it offline AFTER updating it. The things it found IT SAID were low to medium risk. What I DONT understand is…If the avast 4 thing anti virus got 28 Win32 things and it told me to put them in that chest thing…HOW is it that the AVG thing caught SOME MORE stuff?? I guess I dont understand all of this technical stuff, and just want it off my computer! LOL.
Thanks for your help…Yes I do have a firewall.it is in the security thing with windowsmy windows xp it CLAIMS its on. Do I BUY RAM?

10

avast is an anti-virus application and avg anti-spyware as it name implies is anti-spyware there is some crossover in what is detected by both applications and when combined provide better overall protection.

The avg anti-spyware you will notice detects cookies which aren’t malicious but could track you browser activity and are as has been mentioned are Low/Medium risk by their classification. Since you don’t give any examples as to what was found there is no way we can say what that risk is.

The more programs you run the more your RAM has load put on it and with such a low amount of RAM it has to swap information out to your hard disk, what is called a pagefile (formally called a swapfile). This movement of data and sharing of RAM slows your system, you would be advised to increase your RAM.

Windows XP’s firewall is better than no firewall but, it lulls you into a false sense of protection, it doesn’t provide outbound protection. I would say you need to look at a third party firewall to protect against unauthorised outbound connections.

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 a number of freeware firewalls that provide outbound protection, PC Tools, Comodo, Sunbelt Kerio, Jetico, etc. I used to recommend Zone Alarm (ZA), but that has grown to be very bloated (38MB download some say), with a number of additional pieces of trial software in the hope you might purchase. These additional applications ZA installs, will use/require more resources, putting further load on your limited RAM.
See some firewall tests for comparison, some are freeware but many are paid for versions http://www.firewallleaktester.com/tests.php. Also see http://www.thefreecountry.com/security/firewalls.shtml

11

Thank you SO MUCH for being patient AND helpful!!! i now see what u are talking about.YES there WERE tons of “cookie” stuff that that AVG thing removed.
Another ?..after EVERY use on my comp ( even before my problems), I ALWAYS delete my temp internet files and cookies. Are these MORE cookies that the AVG deletes that my comp DOESNT delete? I do this OFFLINE after every time I get offline. Just curious.

12

Unless you have cleared your temp files and cookies before you run avg-as then it is likely to find stuff that is from your current session.

You are probably using IE as your browser, and cookies may also be in a different location, these aren’t in your Temp Internet folder, C:\Documents and Settings\YourUserName\Cookies. You would be surprised at the amount of cookies you can pick up, with a single page possibly generating cookies from more than one source.

Cookies that don’t originate from the web page/site you are visiting are third party cookies, the firefox browser allows you to block third party cookies, accepting only the ones originating from the domain you are browsing. This should reduce the numbers you pick up during browsing.