They're Nasty, They're Everywhere, and There does not Seem to be any Escape

Back in the early nineties, when I only had a 286 computer, I got my first virus. It was called "The Stoned Virus' and at first I thought someone was playing a practical joke on me. I booted up my system and all of a sudden theres a message across my monitor that says "Your Computer is now Stoned". I got this virus by copying some software and every time I rebooted my system it got worse. If I hadn't got rid of it eventually it would have corrupted my entire system.

These days, every time I log onto my system it has either another virus, adware, or some other program that automatically downloaded itself from the net and installed it unto my system. theres a lot of good antivirus programs out there but I haven't found one that is yet to eliminate all the viruses and most of them have a price. I am so sick of all this and all the money I've spent for the software utilities that as of several months ago I started looking for effective Freeware solutions.

The problem with a lot of the Free programs is that either they have a lot of ad's, limited capabilities, or else they will scan your system and locate the viruses but if you want these viruses removed then you have to pay an additional cost. Some of the Free programs will give you a 30 day trial but you have to read the fine print on everything. After trying so many different apps I have finally found several that Walk the Talk.

Before telling you what I have found did you ever notice that most of these threats are aimed at users of Microsoft Windows? I am told that there are hardly any viruses that affect the Macintosh or a Linux system. These days there are some nice Linux operating systems that have the same time of graphical interface that Windows has. The only thing that keeps me from completely switching over is that there are some applications that only work under Windows. I am finding a lot of Opensource alternatives though and I will keep you updated of my finds.

I had expected to have made several new posts by this time but because of something that downloaded to my computer last night I had to spend several hours removing any threats. For my antivirus solution I am using a great little program that updates itself every time I am online and it seems to get rid of viruses that a lot of other programs seem to miss. The antivirus program is AVG Free personal edition. Now before I continue I want to mention that I am not promoting any of the programs that I found nor am I making anything by recommending them.

For removing spyware and adware I use 2 programs. Neither one by itself will take care of everything but if I first run one of them then the other they pretty much take care of almost everything. Now both programs do have paid versions which get you extra features but I am only using the Free versions for now. The two programs are "Spybot Search and Destroy" and 'Ad-Aware SE" which if you do a search you will find many sites that offer free downloads of them.

If you are using a broadband internet connection where you are always connected to the net then I suggest using these programs at least once a week. Now you can use a firewall which will protect your computer from unauthorized downloads but this will also limit a lot of the web sites you may wish to visit and it will also block emails with pictures or certain words in the body of the message.. I choose not to use any firewall myself unless I plan on leaving my computer for a period of time then I might turn on Microsoft's Firewall which is built into Windows XP. Now Microsoft also has another utility which is free and they say is still in the Beta version but it is called Microsoft Antispyware. Now it won't get rid of everything but if you use it in conjunction with the other programs I recommend then you will pretty much be able to eliminate all threats.

I hope the utilities that I am using prove useful to you also but I do give one word of advice. Whenever installing anything new make sure you create a new restore point in windows system Tools so that you always have a backup of the last known working registry.

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Mr Solochek does research for himself as well as other people and posting what he discovers on his Blog. You can visit his blog at
www.nosugarcoating.info

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