Malicious Software Note:
For the last 4 year s I have spent most of my computer service time removing malicious software from local computers. Due to the increase in activity, I began testing all the major virus protection software I could lay my hand on. I performed the tests by cloning hard drives infected with the latest virus going around and then attempting to remove the virus from that drive using commercially available virus protection software. The results of the tests are shown below. The only comment I have is that I was disappointed in the two major brands regarding their ability to protect themselves from the most malicious software I have discovered since starting this process in July 2010. As time has passed, my opinion hasn’t changed yet.
Symptoms: The following symptoms listed are just examples of the many symptoms that can appear. They may appear individually, or all of them at once, in any combination depending on how many and what variety of malicious software that has contaminated your computer.
Popups declaring you have a large number of virus infections on your system and you can remove them by clicking on a link to a website that has Internet security software that will remove the infections and for a price you can download the software. McAfee and Norton either will not run, or do appear to run and do not find any infections, or they lockup the system. Attempts to open a browser and go the McAfee or Norton websites are redirected to another website featuring another brand of virus protection. The system MAY fail to boot in safe mode. The popups begin to increase in frequency as time goes by, and the system beings to run slower and slower until frequent locked screens are common. Task Manager will fail to start, and the system may not shutdown no matter what you click on. NOTE: The above symptoms vary from system to system, but all are a result of a Trojan being downloaded undetected by your current virus protection software.
My Test Results: Two software brands were tested that removed the malicious software in every test. Unfortunately it was neither McAfee nor Norton, or even the AVG virus protection currently becoming more popular. It was Malwarebytes and SuperAntispyware software. (None of the software tested fixed the failure to boot in safe mode because it requires a registry fix due to deletions in the registry.) Free versions of both of those applications are available online for download. The difference between the free versions and the paid versions is that the paid version is active at all times, while the free version has to be opened and run to scan your system. The major difference between Malwarebytes and SuperAntispyware is that I sometimes had a noticeably better system performance after running SuperAntispyware because it found and removed more obscure tracking cookies and software that can slow Internet and system performance, although this did not happen 100% of the time. For a period of two months, Malwarebytes was the ONLY software that removed a particularly vicious virus that was able to disable Norton and McAfee virus protection, delete the safe boot keys from the registry, and diverted all attempts to contact Norton and McAfee to other web sites. Both the applications are less expensive than Norton or McAfee and have free versions that work very well. Check them out by clicking the links in the banners displayed above on the right side. You don’t have to buy anything to check them out.
You should ALWAYS be aware that at any time, if these two applications become the most popular, THEY are subject to attack just like Microsoft has been over time, and Norton and McAfee as well. There may be other software out there as well that will perform as well as my two winners did, but I didn’t come across them during the last six months of random testing.
Click on the images below to check out the malicious software removal tools on their sites.
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