# Good computer virus scan?



## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

Every now & then I run the Housecall scan from Trend Micro, to check for possible infections on my computer. It never seems to find many (any?) threats. Just wondering if there are other - better - free scanning options out there? Anyone? Thanks.


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## scorpion_ca (Nov 3, 2014)

What is the operating system you use? If you use Windows, you can use Microsoft Security Essentials...I like it and it's free.

https://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-security/microsoft-security-essentials.aspx


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

Windows XP?


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware............Spybot...........there are some other free scanners as well..............just google them.

Only problem is many will detect the spyware or viruses but won't remove them until you pay. You will probably have to run a couple of them for more thorough cleaning.

I believe Windows XP had Windows Defender. The new Windows Essentials is basically the new version of it.

Check at the Microsoft website first. They have lots of free software.


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## fraser (May 15, 2010)

We use Norton. Yes, it does catch viruses and intrusion attempts. 

I always purchase the 3 system license. For the past few years I have purchased it online on Cyber Monday or on/about Boxing Day.

I bought a three system lic. of Norton Security Deluxe this past Cyber Monday from Staples On Line. It cost $22. In the past I have paid anywhere from $23 to $27 for the product. I had an infected system years ago...don't want that again. Current lic. expires in March so this one will be installed then.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Microsoft's Security Essentials stopped supporting Windows XP this past July, and some of the other antivirus software makers have stopped providing support or will stop in 2016.

Windows XP presents a lot of special risks if you connect to the internet, because it is no longer given security patches by Microsoft (they stopped in April 2014). Here's an article on the security measures you should take if you're still using XP (warning, PC World often plays sound automatically when you open their web pages):

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2102...e-when-microsoft-ends-windows-xp-support.html


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## LBCfan (Jan 13, 2011)

AVG Free


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

LBCfan said:


> AVG Free


+1


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

FYI, AVG is one of the relatively few antivirus providers that continues to provide support for Windows XP and doesn't yet have any plans to stop. See https://support.avg.com/SupportArticleView?l=en_US&urlName=AVG-support-for-Windows-XP for details.

As they and the other article I linked to above emphasize, you should definitely not use Internet Explorer on an XP machine; Firefox (Mozilla) is probably your best bet; i'm not sure Chrome is continuing to be patched for XP.


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

thanks all. i have windows xp on my old desktop box, and windows 7 on the old laptop.
one other note. i think i tried something call "Avast"? a few years back. It seem to shag up a lot of things on my machine, so i got rid of it & shied away from trying other options out there. might give AVG a try now.


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## Sherlock (Apr 18, 2010)

I heard that Kaspersky was pretty good: http://www.kaspersky.ca/free-virus-scan

But you really should not be using XP, it does not receive security updates any more and you are just asking to get hacked. If your computer is too old to run Windows 7 or 10 smoothly, then consider installing Linux, there are many versions that are extremely easy to use and work smoothly on older machines.


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## fraser (May 15, 2010)

I am not a fan of Microsoft Corp software. They have a poor QA reputation and a habit of releasing releases prematurely with the resulting flood of version updates/bug fixes. I would never migrate to any newly released Microsoft product.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

jargey3000 said:


> thanks all. i have windows xp on my old desktop box, and windows 7 on the old laptop.
> one other note. i think i tried something call "Avast"? a few years back. It seem to shag up a lot of things on my machine, so i got rid of it & shied away from trying other options out there. might give AVG a try now.


I have used Norton in the past, but about 3 years ago, I switched to AVG when I found the internet security package on sale at Staples. I forget how much I paid, but it was reasonable,
and very effective to keep my PC safe from viruses. Currently it's $74.99 for one year subscription or $109.99 for 2 years for me. You can also download it for free,but this will be a scaled down version without all the additional features that the subscription version gives you. 

I like the fact that the subscription version shows a green circle and green protection checkmarks for each category, computer, web, identity, email and firewall are protected.

AVG Performance is on sale currently at Staples and it's around $39.99 

Right now, Kapersky antivirus protection is the cheapest at Staples..on sale for $29.99, I think .


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

re Windows XP being old & outdated (something like me ......) On startup my computer always asks me if i want to upgrade to Windows 8 (from XP). Up til now I've said "no thanks". Should i install Windows 8 - or is that ALSO obsolete now???


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## scorpion_ca (Nov 3, 2014)

I would not upgrade operating system in old computer. My brother upgraded the operating system of his Acer laptop from Win 7 to Win 10 and after couple of days the sound card stopped working. There are lot of cheap but good laptop in the market nowadays.

What is the specs (RAM, hard disk size & processor) of your laptop?


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

jargey3000 said:


> re Windows XP being old & outdated (something like me ......) On startup my computer always asks me if i want to upgrade to Windows 8 (from XP). Up til now I've said "no thanks". Should i install Windows 8 - or is that ALSO obsolete now???


I wouldn't. You could destabilize your computer. How old is it now? 

The new OS require more Ram and disk space. Running on XP, it's fine. But If you want to upgrade to WIN8, upgrade the entire computer, not just the
s/w. The drivers will be correct for Win8 then. 

otherwise, if it ain't broke..don't fix it!


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## fraser (May 15, 2010)

Just looked at the Norton Security Deluxe box that I purchased a few weeks ago. We do not run XP but according the box, Norton supports XP.

The package also supports android, ios, as well as a number of Microsoft o/s. I guess you input your lic key and then select the target OS.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

jargey3000 said:


> re Windows XP being old & outdated (something like me ......) On startup my computer always asks me if i want to upgrade to Windows 8 (from XP). Up til now I've said "no thanks". Should i install Windows 8 - or is that ALSO obsolete now???



i think it was in cmf that some wag said Windows has on/off years in perfect rotation.

as in XP - excellent.
Vista - crappy
windows 7 - good
windows 8 - crappy
was there ever a windows 9?

the same wag said that, by the above logic, windows 10 ought to be fabulous. There's a problem with the rotation theory, though. Because, so far, windows 10 might be turning out to be another crappy.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

humble_pie said:


> i
> the same wag said that, by the above logic, windows 10 ought to be fabulous. There's a problem with the rotation theory, though. Because, so far, windows 10 might be turning out to be another crappy.


Actually I think Windows 10 is pretty great, and lots of reviews say it's the best version of Windows ever. I would agree with that. It's just that it's still Windows, which means buggy and incomplete. I've been using Windows 10 for a few months now and am generally happy with it, it's just that it's still very new and there are still lots of little annoyances that make it feel like it was rushed to production (which is true, according to David Pogue, who wrote an excellent Missing Manual user manual for Windows 10, Microsoft spent only one year developing Windows 10).

I'm sticking with it, and assuming that a year from now Microsoft will have ironed out most of the problems.


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## Sherlock (Apr 18, 2010)

I've been using windows since I was a wee little kid and have used almost every version and here's my opinion:

3.1 - good
95 - good
98 - bad
98se - good
me - terrible
2000 - good
xp - good
vista - bad
7 - good
8 - bad
10 - have'nt decided yet, but I like it better than 8

Personally I mostly use Linux but keep Windows around for games.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

Microsoft can call their s/w OS any version they want. It's all about marketing and Microsoft just keeps us in the dark as to what the next major release will be called.

Perhaps the upgrade for Win 8.0 (8.1) was supposed to be 9.0, but it's always better to skip a number and let the users think that the newer version is better to upgrade to.



> There’s also the fact that the name of each Windows release doesn’t actually match the real version number. For example, *Windows 8.1 is actually version 6.3 of Windows.*
> 
> *Windows 10 is version 6.4.*
> 
> ...


http://www.extremetech.com/computing/191279-why-is-it-called-windows-10-not-windows-9


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

humble_pie said:


> ... the same wag said that, by the above logic, windows 10 ought to be fabulous. There's a problem with the rotation theory, though. Because, so far, windows 10 might be turning out to be another crappy.


Where the laptop builder and Microsoft have so far left the existing drivers so that the fancy video card and HDMI are deactivated .... I'd say Windows 10 is crappy. :biggrin:




brad said:


> Actually I think Windows 10 is pretty great, and lots of reviews say it's the best version of Windows ever. I would agree with that. It's just that it's still Windows, which means buggy and incomplete ...


 ... and for me, it's a step down as it's disabled or made useless so much hardware compared to what used to work.


Cheers


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

Eclectic12 said:


> Where the laptop builder and Microsoft have so far left the existing drivers so that the fancy video card and HDMI are deactivated .... I'd say Windows 10 is crappy. :biggrin:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think that MS is seeing the days of the laptop over and concentrating on new devices such as the ipad and other devices being developed.
Window 8.0 was a forerunner of that transition, where a mouse and external keyboard will be a thing of the past. 
Touchscreens and just moving your finger around the screen to select the apps will be the main focus in the future, as well as speech driven.


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## NorthKC (Apr 1, 2013)

I use Avast on my 2 computers (1 is Vista and other is 7) and AVG on XP and both programs catch more viruses and malware than Nortel does and they're not such a hog on the processing systems.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

NorthKC said:


> I use Avast on my 2 computers (1 is Vista and other is 7) and AVG on XP and *both programs catch more viruses and malware than Nortel does *and they're not such a hog on the processing systems.


You must mean Norton anti-virus.....Nortel (the high tech company) has been defunct for a few years now.:biggrin:


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## NorthKC (Apr 1, 2013)

Blame it on my autocorrect on my phone. It is indeed Norton. Thanks for catching it!


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

NorthKC said:


> I use Avast... and AVG and both programs catch more viruses and malware than Norton does and they're not such a hog on the processing systems.


What is your source for comparison of these three? Dennis Technology Labs recently showed: Norton > Avast > AVG.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2482246,00.asp


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

carverman said:


> I think that MS is seeing the days of the laptop over and concentrating on new devices such as the ipad and other devices being developed.


I can't tell the difference between M$ saying twenty years ago "buy new hardware" and them saying it today for Windows 10.


Cheers


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## NorthKC (Apr 1, 2013)

OnlyMyOpinion said:


> What is your source for comparison of these three? Dennis Technology Labs recently showed: Norton > Avast > AVG.
> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2482246,00.asp


Good question. This is based on personal experience. When I was using Norton over a 3 year period, somehow, I had 10 viruses get onto my computer despite me being diligent with my scanning, updates, etc. So, I decided to try out Avast. Avast found 5 viruses that Norton didn't so that got my attention and it really did clean up my computer well. After a year of using both, I've noticed that Avast was stopping more viruses, malware, etc than Norton was and my computer was not so slow with Avast in background vs Norton. So, I've decided to get rid of Norton and use Avast and have never had a problem with my computers since.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

It's odd, I've been using Windows since 1999, and have only once had a virus on my computer (got infected once, and since then my anti-virus has never trapped/quarantined anything else because I've never been exposed). I think the keys are:

1. Never click on any link in an email, even if it came from friends. I'll make exceptions if I hover over the link and see that it's going to a site I know, but otherwise no clicky.
2. Never click on ads in websites.
3. Never use apps or games in Facebook.
4. Use a firewall, either on your computer or by configuring your router. Once as an experiment I turned on my computer's firewall and connected it directly to my DSL line without a router: within 5 minutes my firewall software showed that my computer had been attacked 30,000 times by malicious robots all over the world. Firewalls work!


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## zylon (Oct 27, 2010)

Anyone else having this problem?

I'm using Windows 7 on a 5-year old HP desktop.

For about two weeks now, everything just freezes up for a few minutes. 
Suspects are SilverLight and Youtube because I don't recall freeze-up when I'm not using those two.

According to Avira Pro, I have no virus or infection of any kind. 
I uninstalled Firefox because occasionally would get a message saying FF had frozen. 
Still having the problem with IE and Opera.

Have done defrag and cleanup; hard drive "C" has lots and lots of free space.

Windows seems to be doing alot of updating lately - maybe it's time for Linux?


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

1.Try running sfc/scannow

instructions: 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929833

2. Check disk for errors.


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## zylon (Oct 27, 2010)

^^ Thanks. Will give it a go! ^^


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## nathan79 (Feb 21, 2011)

I often scan computers for friends and family, and these days I mainly use HitmanPro: http://www.surfright.nl/en/hitmanpro
And Malwarebytes: https://www.malwarebytes.org/

Between those two programs you probably have the majority of threats covered.

I was a loyal user of HouseCall in the past and still use it on occasion.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

zylon said:


> Anyone else having this problem?
> 
> I'm using Windows 7 on a 5-year old HP desktop.
> 
> ...


You need to run a good cleaner program on your computer to free up a lot of old browsing files etc.

Silverlight is a memory leak hog. 
AVG has one called AVG PC UNEUP . You can try it for free. 
http://www.avg.com/ca-en/avg-pctuneup


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## zylon (Oct 27, 2010)

Thanks C-man!
Is it cool to use this while I have Avira installed?

My probs do indeed appear to be caused by SilverLight - everything's been humming smoothly since I quit using it.


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

AVG is not the one to use, once again:
_...AVG plugin leaves users vulnerable to cross-site scripting attacks if they visit a malicious website that targets flaws in the ...plugin....
...This isn’t AVG’s first brush with undesired attention, earlier this fall PC World’s Jared Newman pointed out that changes in their privacy policy meant that AVG was selling their user’s non-personal data...._
http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/12/avg-plugin-chrome


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

re post #30 above: Firewalls. can anyone recommend a good, free Firewall for XP, and Windows 7?


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

jargey3000 said:


> re post #30 above: Firewalls. can anyone recommend a good, free Firewall for XP, and Windows 7?


Windows comes with a firewall built in, you just turn it off or on in the security settings. That should be good enough for Windows 7, but XP's built-in firewall is probably not enough anymore since Microsoft has stopped supporting it. You could try ZoneAlarm's free firewall for that, I suppose.


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## Eder (Feb 16, 2011)

carverman said:


> You need to run a good cleaner program on your computer to free up a lot of old browsing files etc.


http://www.howtogeek.com/162683/pc-cleaning-apps-are-a-scam-heres-why-and-how-to-speed-up-your-pc/


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