[Recovered Thread: 62320]

[bob_ledyard]

Hi All,

I thought I'd pass this along to everyone. There was no good place to make thispost on this forum, so I hope this is OK! We all spend so much time and money to get the best pictures ---- BUT, take the time to make sure you don't lose them ! ! !

First - make sure you back up all your photos! Better, do as I do and use one PC for the web and one PC for everything else.

Here's the SCARY story ----

I have SBC YAHOO DSL and just loaded (yesterday morning!) their protection package (anti-virus, anti-spam,....). Last evening, my PC turned into a boat anchor - 300+ files infected with a virus ! ! !

After over an hour with SBC Tech Support (not very helpful!), I have this to pass along. The SBC YAHOO protection package detected some YAHOO TRACKING SPYWARE/COOKIES and it was identified as a trogan and the file was quarrantined! The trogan = WORLD INDICES. SBC YAHOO tech support said that this was related to YAHOO and it was a form of YAHOO's gathering info from your computer ! ! ! !

SBC YAHOO tech support could not tell me how to correct problem other than to REFORMAT the drive and re-load everything. They could PROVIDE NO HELP in data recovery or how to remove the "YAHOO TROGAN" ! A DIRECT QUOTE from SBC technician " I don't know much about the virus software, ....."

AND, they said that after I re-load my system and their protection package, there was NO guarrantee this would not happen again.

So, please make sure you back-up your photos and data. Fortunately, other than a day of my life to re-load my system, I lost no data or pictures! And all of this was caused by my using their software to protect myself - and they caused the problem!

Good luck,

Bob

[TechJD]

I recomend 2 programs for tracking and spyware
Ad-Aware ( not ad-ware )
and Spybot
both of these are very good programs and both are free
Yahoo has gone the way of MS, AOL and a lot more, in wanting to track what you do
on the web, these programs are designed to stop that action
of course Yahoo wont tell you how to remove their tracking software lol
the link to both these and a free Trogen remover are on my site http://techjd.ekn.net
on the left hand side

[Goofas]

get a Mac:angry:

[bob_ledyard]

I've always used "PC"/Microsoft based systems. I've heard your suggestion before. Since I'm not familar with Macs, why are PCs vulnerable to viruses, but not Macs?



:-)

Bob

[VTphotog]

It isn't so much that macs are not vulnerable, as it is that Microsoft is a bigger target. Why bother writing a virus that is going to bother just a few, when nearly all corporate nets are MS?

I use Ad-Aware myself, in conjunction with Spywareblaster, and have not had problems with spyware. AVG free edition anti-virus from Grisoft keeps my PC free of viruses too.

brian

[JimC]

It's a never ending battle....

I'm using XP Pro (with SP2 and all updates), AVG Antivirus from Grisoft, Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D, Microsoft's Anti-Spyware beta software, Zone Alarm (software firewall) and a hardware router/firewall.

Despite all of this, I've still had two problems in the past couple of months (no damage done).

I have AVG Antivirus setup to download new updates (if available) every night at 2:00AM, and run a full system scan at 4:00AM.

Apparently, a virus slipped through the cracks between updates (scan at 4:00AM found a new virus based on previous update at 2:00AM recently) in afile inside of a subdirectory for Sun's JAVA, and Microsoft's Anti-Spyware found a new trojan after an update that the other products missed (the first time that's happened). I'm still trying to figure out how the problem got to the subdirectory with Java stuff in it.

I really need to stop using Internet Explorer, or at least disable Active-X (I do use Firefox for some sites, though).

There is always going to be a "window of opportunity" for new viruses, since they are going to be distributed bythe authorsprior to any virus scan updates designed to find them. It's rare that this happens (infection between udpates), but it does happen.

I'll most likely switch over to Linux before Longhorn is ever released. I've already switched my wife over to MEPIS (a popular Linux distribution) and she really likes it. I setup her PC as dual boot (Windows and Linux), but she hasn't needed Windows again yet. So, I may just free up the space for Windows and give it to Linux.

Because of the software I use designed for Windows, I can't switch just yet. Well, I could probably try, since many Windows Applications will run under Wine (a free product designed to let you run Windows applications under Linux). But, I'll probably wait a little longer for more applications to be available underLinux, first.

[Zombywoof]

I basically run all those defense software as everyone else. In fact they are all FREE! I haven't had any problems at all with spyware, pop-ups or viruses. I was using them on my old Win 98 PC and now on my XP PC.

[tommysdad]

I'm using XP Pro (with SP2 and all updates), AVG Antivirus from Grisoft, Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D, Microsoft's Anti-Spyware beta software, Zone Alarm (software firewall) and a hardware router/firewall.

Snap, no problems so far with the same programs.I recommend AVG antivirus its the only one I`ve ever used in 5+ years of happy computing.

Try shields up,it will check if your pc is vulnerable to attack from the outside.There are also lots of freeware programs on the GRC site that maybe useful



https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2



TD

[Carskick]

AVG is the best anti-virus, and it is free. Team that up with Spybot, Ad-Aware, and SpywareBlaster, and you should be safe.

SpywareBlaster hasn't been mentioned yet, but it is preventative software that takes no system resources. Check it out.

Also, a good hardware firewall should be enough if you have the previously mentioned software, but get a good software firewall if you don't.

[tommysdad]

Here is a link to some good spyware programs,the site is very good and has lots of good freeware programs .

You should find everything you need on the site.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads31.html

TD

I`ve used spywareblaster for a while now ,thumbs up from me