8.30.2009

I Think We're Clean

Most of yesterday was spent downloading software, updating virus definitions and scanning the three large drives on my computer. I think I've finally found all my problems and that I'm now running Trojan and spyware free. *whew*

I started out by scanning my drives for junk, old temp files, that sort of thing. I pulled over a few gigabytes of garbage and dumped it all. (using Wise Disc Cleaner, the free version). I plan to run it again today and see what else is lurking about. Yesterday I only hit major directories.

Then, I ran Malwarebytes' AntiMalware program. It found a bunch of stuff. Nine infected or suspicious files, an infected folder and four registry entries/keys/etc that required cleaning or quarantining.

Finally, I ran full AVG scans of everything. It found and cleaned up a couple more items.

This morning after a restart, my computer is running somewhat faster than it was before, and I'm certainly not getting any irritating antivirus popups, "infected file blah-blah-blah requires action." I've uninstalled F-Prot, my previous virus protection, as it didn't find any of this stuff. It popped up occasionally with a warning about something, but repeated scans didn't actually find (or more importantly, eliminate) the trouble.

We'll see how this goes. The software I'm now using comes highly recommended by CNET editors and users, so I'm quite hopeful.

--End--

2 comments:

Chris said...

So you never said how you determined that you actually had malware on your PC or what the symptoms were...

What condition are you expecting to not come back now that you've done all of this?

Unknown said...

True.

Well, my computer's been running slow. Slow. Slower.... And I do a lot of stuff on the web, downloading, trying new games, demos, etc ... so I live a susceptible lifestyle, online-wise.

Then F-Prot would occasionally, but not consistently find a Trojan lurking, but would not be able to disinfect it. (I'm thinking, "Well, then, thanks for nothing...") So, I went to CNET and found some other virus protection software and it found infected files daily. I'd quarantine and/or remove them, but the same stupid things kept coming back (FOQ Trojan). So I knew I had something in the registry or somewhere deeper, anyway.

So, now the computer is booting up faster and running a bit faster (it's not a new machine, so I know it's not going to handle my video editing software smoothly, no matter when I do) And the multiple scanning tools I'm now using are consistently coming up clean.

At the recommendation of a couple of friends on Facebook, I'm also using "Crap Cleaner" and "Spybot S&D" in addition to the software I'd previously mentioned. F-Prot is gone.