-- Posted by ipiratewaffles at 10:42 am on Aug. 24, 2006 All of a sudden, I started getting pop-ups and web ads for antivirus shit all over. Then, an anti-virus software installed itself onto my computer. I managed to delete it, and I'm running my shitty anti-virus software right now. Can anybody give me any advice? -- Posted by Kuzaki at 10:44 am on Aug. 24, 2006 Well the best anti-virus software I've used (and personally would trust with my life) is AVG Anti-Virus. It might be better than the software you're using now, it might not. But I'd recommend you download and scan your computer with it. Also, be sure to scan your computer for spyware with Spybot: Search & Destroy to make sure there are no long-term nasties left on your computer after you've gotten rid of the initial virus. -- Posted by Born2die at 10:47 am on Aug. 24, 2006 Both those things that Kuzaki person said are really good, I'd download them. Another good free one is Adaware -- Posted by ipiratewaffles at 11:27 am on Aug. 24, 2006 Thank you both. Spybot has found over 50 counts of spyware in my system. No wonder my computer is all fucked. -- Posted by Napster the Hacker at 11:59 am on Aug. 24, 2006 Try Avast anti-virus, Its a Good software.you can get that for free from here > http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html first you have to register and get the Activation key[they will Email you the Key#],after that download >Install > Run the Avast anti-virus >finally activate it by the Activation key. After the Installation is done Run Avast and scan your PC. And Try AVG Anti-Virus too many people say thats good,I've never used that but try that.Any how Avast is the best.Im using Avast. -- Posted by bighead1991 at 2:44 pm on Aug. 24, 2006 Quote: from Napster the Hacker at 7:59 pm on Aug. 24, 2006 Try Avast anti-virus, Its a Good software.you can get that for free from here > http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html first you have to register and get the Activation key[they will Email you the Key#],after that download >Install > Run the Avast anti-virus >finally activate it by the Activation key. After the Installation is done Run Avast and scan your PC. And Try AVG Anti-Virus too many people say thats good,I've never used that but try that.Any how Avast is the best.Im using Avast. I've heard that Avast! isn't suppose to be as good any more :-( -- Posted by bighead1991 at 2:42 pm on Aug. 26, 2006 I think it was because Avast! was unknown when it started, but now its getting quite popular. All ruined by you telling people to get it :P jk. -- Posted by Napster the Hacker at 9:19 am on Aug. 27, 2006 Quote: from bighead1991 at 3:12 am on Aug. 27, 2006 I think it was because Avast! was unknown when it started, but now its getting quite popular. All ruined by you telling people to get it :P jk. lol dude! I thought that was some thing else, shhh... I wont tell any one else... lol -- Posted by Whuppee at 10:30 am on Aug. 28, 2006 Admittedly, I haven't used AVG for years.  It could easily have been improved since my last experiences with it.  But for the hell of it, I'll describe the experience that got me to stop using it. Through a download, I ended up getting a virus on my computer.  Awesomely, I was aware of this before AVG noticed anything amiss.  20 some programs with names like r1.exe suddenly installing themselves to your computer can be a good hint.  Especially when deleting them causes them to be reinstalled again within seconds, your startup list starts having programs added to it, and the amount of processes you have running roughly doubles. AVG is like "virus detected, please scan to get rid of it". It's worth noting that I quickly made sure I had the newest virus database they'd released, just before pulling my net connection so as to be able to scan without anything new adding itself. A little later, AVG claimed my computer was completely clean.  Yet I still had processes running that shouldn't have been, files that should have been quarantined that it never noticed.. and upon plugging back into the net, the virus resumed where it left off. Alternately, one day a friend recommended Avast! to me.  Shortly after installing it, I decided to test it out by attempting to download and install a (non-virus) keylogger to my computer.. intentionally. Avast! popped up a warning as soon as I clicked the link to download it, telling me that it didn't think I wanted to do that.. another when the download finished, telling me that the .DLLs in the archive included a number of virus-like hooks (afterall, it was a keylogger), and after overriding those and installing the program anyway, Avast! continued to complain about it. What impressed me most about that was that it was complaining about the process, what the program was doing in active memory, and such at that point... not even just the physical set of files. Comparitively, it probably goes without saying that I feel far safer with Avast! than AVG. And Ad-Aware is certainly nice in terms of getting rid of spyware.