My computers been running really slowly today and yesterday so I'm running an anti virus program and it's found one thing so told it to delete it, but it also had the option of putting it in quarantine...should I just delete it? I'm not going to delete anything important am I? Cheers!

May as well delete it. If it's important but virus-infected then you'll need to reinstall whatever breaks when it gets deleted.

Cool, thanks for that! Its only found a couple of things so far but its only at 7.1% but I'm a bit worried as my computer has been stupidly slow.

You could have quarantined it first to see if it had any effect, some virus checkers flag up things like addmail or tracking devices as viruses when they can be armless, did the virus checker rate the threat, high, medium low, this is usually a good indication.

quareneen first, then you reboot see if anything untoward happens, if everythings fine, delete it

Thanks guys! I paid more attention to my virus scanner and it had an option to delete but back up into quarantine, so I did that, everything seems ok, and my computer is running much more smoothly!

Good show!

Now....are you running anything to deal with Spyware?
If you have viruses, chances are you've also got Spyware kicking about.

Also, now you're in the habit, make sure you install it and run it regularly. What software did you use?

I've got AVG running now, which seems to be going along pretty well and I use spybot to search out spyware. Are those the right sort of things to be using?? Also, I'm thinking about using some sort of firewall but don't know which to go for, heh, something free though! Are any much better than others?

I've got AVG running now, which seems to be going along pretty well and I use spybot to search out spyware. Are those the right sort of things to be using?? Also, I'm thinking about using some sort of firewall but don't know which to go for, heh, something free though! Are any much better than others?

i use avg and spybot both excellent free utilities
as for firewalls

xp service pack 2 has one built in.
comodo
sygate
jetico

theres a list somewhere that ann and people made of excellent free security stuff

I've got AVG running now, which seems to be going along pretty well and I use spybot to search out spyware. Are those the right sort of things to be using?? Also, I'm thinking about using some sort of firewall but don't know which to go for, heh, something free though! Are any much better than others?

I would recommend you install AVG antispyware, it seems to be more thorough than both Spybot and Adaware.

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5#avg-anti-spyware-free

If you're still using Internet Explorer then you should seriously consider using a different browser, as Internet Explorer is the worst by far for letting in spyware. I would highly recommend you switch to the Opera browser.

http://www.opera.com/

As for firewalls the standard Windows firewall that comes with XP only gives incoming protection, this means that it's pretty much useless against spyware. There are a number of free firewalls available that have both incoming and outgoing protection,
but probably one of the most stable tried and trusted firewalls is Zone Alarm. There are others out there that might do a more comprehensive job than ZoneAlarm, but they tend to be more complicated or haven't been on the market long enough to work out some basic bugs in their design. So my choice would still be ZoneAlarm.

http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/catalog/products/sku_list_za.jsp;jsessionid=GQvqTagFpEBqAlueXAsTpVq Dbf3q02AYJXNnks44NGHzczmwNWaw!1920156943!-1062696904!7551!7552!NONE?dc=12bms&ctry=US&lang=en

xp service pack 2 has one built in.QUOTE]

Which is, quite simply, rubbish.


[QUOTE=melthebell;2259253]comodo

Is fine (if you're using 2k or above):thumbsup:


sygate

Nice and simple. Shame Symantec bought them out:(.


jetico

Not tried this, as yet:).


I still use ZAP (firewall only), AVG (for anti-virus), Spybot (with Teatimer) AdAware (malware), the occasional scan with HiJackThis/cCleaner and a couple of regcleaners:).

All work on any M$ OS from NinetyHate (possibly NinetyDive) through to HexPoo:) (don't know about Pissta as I don't use it).

[QUOTE=melthebell;2259253]xp service pack 2 has one built in.QUOTE]

Which is, quite simply, rubbish.




Is fine (if you're using 2k or above):thumbsup:




Nice and simple. Shame Symantec bought them out:(.




Not tried this, as yet:).


I still use ZAP (firewall only), AVG (for anti-virus), Spybot (with Teatimer) AdAware (malware), the occasional scan with HiJackThis/cCleaner and a couple of regcleaners:).

All work on any M$ OS from NinetyHate (possibly NinetyDive) through to HexPoo:) (don't know about Pissta as I don't use it).

oh and zone alarm have stopped support for windows 98 now cos micro$haft have.
cos ive been looking for a free easy to use one to stick on somebodys puter the other day, i stuck the jetico one on

oh and zone alarm have stopped support for windows 98 now cos micro$haft have.
cos ive been looking for a free easy to use one to stick on somebodys puter the other day, i stuck the jetico one on

ZoneAlarm support is still going strong for XP though!
I've heard through other forums that Jetico is good, but it isn't suitable for the newbie as it's too complicated. Comodo is another popular new firewall that does extemely well in tests but, there are quite a number of users that report problems that appear to develop with it, and also it appears that Comodo is a program that is troublesome to unistall.
ZoneAlarm is a good basic firewall that is easy to use and should suit the needs of a newbie.(As long as they have Win XP)