Hey, Danny. Have you ever tried HiJackThis for malware/virus removal? It's the most effective for getting rid of super stubborn viruses. It's not automatic like the rest. You get right in there and remove the critters. You have to know what you are looking for though because it scans and displays every process on your system. If you aren't sure you can post the log file to the HiJackThis forums and they'll tell what to remove and what to leave. You'd be surprised what kind of gack it'll find that's been missed by other AVs and spyware removal tools. Best to do it in safe mode and be absolutely sure you aren't removing something that the system needs but it also provides a general description of all the entries so you can get an idea of what's what. It's free on CNET. Hope you've been well. Cheers.

Oh and Danny... Norton sucks these days. Avast or Microsoft Security Essentials are the way to go for free AVs. Kapersky is supposedly one of the few paid AVs worth its salt but I've never used it.

Danny Danzi



  I can't believe the people at MS can't put an end to this virus and malware stuff.

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist I happen to think that many of them are created by the very people who want to sell you the security software. The natural cynic in me always suspected this, but I did some work for a guy last year who had just got a job for one of them, having previously worked for another and was asked at the interview if he had ever knowingly created / spread malware and put it out there and his answer was - of course I have - you do know where I used to work ? He got the job, so I guess that says a lot. FWIW he says that in all the tests he has ever done, which is part of his job, none are foolproof and some are better at certain things than others, but Eset (not who he works for) is the best overall and tge one he uses for his personal PCs. I have no idea if this is right, but I have had no problems (that I know of) since I installed it on my internet PC, whereas I did get the odd relatively harmless spyware with AVG.  As for internet banking........well personally I think that's just asking for trouble anyway and many people will only realise how much trouble when they close all the actual banks because they will be deemed unnecessary and expensive and it all has to be done online and everyone is totally at the mercy of online customer service. Hopefully not in my lifetime, but a totally cashless system seems to be what they are all striving for.

 I have picked up a few viruses but I have only myself to blame there, like Bub said it is best not to go surfing anywhere on a DAW, of course regular software updates pretty much require me to be plugged in at some point. The thing is people regularly get frustrated with macs too, maybe not always for the same reasons but the day will come.....if it's a computer of any kind it will give you some kind of a fit during its life.....job security for a lot of people.

  A lot of the problems with computers cause a lot of frustration on a regular basis but I think it is the can do or can ask attitude that will prevail in most any situation. I have had some doozies and managed to get through all of them and life goes on.

  I would definitely upgrade from Vista.Probably one of the worst things windows made in awhile. Instead of burning the computer or throwing it in the river walk away from it for awhile, it works for me at least. My problems with Win7 64 have been very few and far inbetween and mostly self imposed.

Sorry to hear about that fiasco with the virus, Danny......I'm glad you've gotten it sorted out.

Thank goodness, I've been lucky not to get anything that malicious like that....well.......yeah I did have something worse...........ZUNE!!!!

Karyn


Is it really true that none of the scum of the earth ever bother to write viruseses for mac or is that just a myth put about by mac users because they're to embarrassed to admit their computer is full of viruses?

In my 2 years on Mac, there was one serious threat, last winter. 


So, one one hand, yes, many Mac users seem over-confident that there's no risk and don't protect their machine. On the other hand, when there's a new threat on Mac, I seem to find out quicker as the communication w/in the community is more efficient, because you're not always in alert mode...


On Windows, there are so many threats that I'd sometimes read about a new virus here on this forum, and then another one through a friend at work, and then some I'd simply never hear about until I did some research. The info is out there, but there's so much of it...

I use Eset and it's been good for me.

Oh and I know I say this all the time but using Firefox (yes I know it sucks for this forum but you can use IE tab for FF or Chrome here) with AdBlockPlus and NoScript stops a lot that crap before it even gets a chance to hit your system. ABP just works non intrusively but with NoScript you have to fiddle with it a bit but that's good. It makes it so you can see all the crap a website is trying load onto your system. About 95% of it isn't needed to view the webpages and a large amount of it, particularly on sketchier sites, spies on you and installs nastiness. Usually you just have to allow the host domain and you have full access to everything you want. With streaming sites like youtube and soundcloud you usually have to allow the domain where the actual vids are streaming from as well (for youtube it is ytimg.com for example). Some sites will only have a couple extra domains trying to load but others will have a list of twenty or more external sites all trying to clamor onto your system. Mostly adservices and analytic sites (like google analytics which sends your browsing habits back to google and is unnecessary... but there are far more malicious ones than google doing the same thing). Many times the operators of the main site have no control over what these other sites are doing. They get their little kickback or whatever and the other services do what they want. A good example is with ad services who get paid to toss their clients ads all over the place but don't test the content and viruses/malware/spyware can slip through. Because you are dealing with three or more companies (sometimes MANY more) there is absolutely no accountability. This is one more reason I like this forum. There are a couple of analytics thingies (google analytics and ownerIQ) that try to load but that's it and all I need to do is allow the cakewalk domain and I can use the site without that crap. Also all the ads on here come from Cakewalk themselves (as far as I've seen) so there isn't this layer upon layer of shady internet businesses getting access to my system. Anyway... super boring stuff but it's good to know ESPECIALLY if you are putting critical systems like a DAW on line. Just thought I'd toss that out there for everyone while I'm taking a little break from my current noise experiment. Cheers.

Sorry for the block of text... I guess that meandering ramble got away from me a little. ;-p

Beepster


Oh and I know I say this all the time but using Firefox (yes I know it sucks for this forum but you can use IE tab for FF or Chrome here) with AdBlockPlus and NoScript stops a lot that crap before it even gets a chance to hit your system. ABP just works non intrusively but with NoScript you have to fiddle with it a bit but that's good. It makes it so you can see all the crap a website is trying load onto your system. About 95% of it isn't needed to view the webpages and a large amount of it, particularly on sketchier sites, spies on you and installs nastiness. Usually you just have to allow the host domain and you have full access to everything you want. With streaming sites like youtube and soundcloud you usually have to allow the domain where the actual vids are streaming from as well (for youtube it is ytimg.com for example). Some sites will only have a couple extra domains trying to load but others will have a list of twenty or more external sites all trying to clamor onto your system. Mostly adservices and analytic sites (like google analytics which sends your browsing habits back to google and is unnecessary... but there are far more malicious ones than google doing the same thing). Many times the operators of the main site have no control over what these other sites are doing. They get their little kickback or whatever and the other services do what they want. A good example is with ad services who get paid to toss their clients ads all over the place but don't test the content and viruses/malware/spyware can slip through. Because you are dealing with three or more companies (sometimes MANY more) there is absolutely no accountability. This is one more reason I like this forum. There are a couple of analytics thingies (google analytics and ownerIQ) that try to load but that's it and all I need to do is allow the cakewalk domain and I can use the site without that crap. Also all the ads on here come from Cakewalk themselves (as far as I've seen) so there isn't this layer upon layer of shady internet businesses getting access to my system. Anyway... super boring stuff but it's good to know ESPECIALLY if you are putting critical systems like a DAW on line. Just thought I'd toss that out there for everyone while I'm taking a little break from my current noise experiment. Cheers.

Or use a Mac. ;)


Sorry Beepster, you know I appreciate you and that's some sound advice in there, but I couldn't help but smile - I just felt like, graphically,  this was a perfect illustration of the PC/Mac thing. A dense paragraph, w/ lots of (valid) instructions and no line break (and I know it's a forum issue, not your fault) vs a single line w/ one instruction. 

For all the years I've spent on the PC, I can't say that I've been bothered w/ virus all that much. But I've certainly had to be in tech-mode for whatever reason on a much more regular basis.