Monday, June 4, 2012

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING IS, WELL, TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING


I was doing some virus removal the other day and on this particular computer they had AVG (Free version), Microsoft Security Essentials (also free), an expired McAfee anti-virus suite, and active McAfee search toolbar (free), and a Current Norton 360 Ver.5 anti-virus suite on just this one computer! (don't get me started on CC Cleaner, PC-Doctor, Comcast free Norton, etc.).

The call was scheduled because their PC seemed a bit slow, but I'm sure they felt like their Dell P4 with 256MB of RAM should be able to handle this. Granted, they were running XP, but can you imagine only having 256MB of RAM?? I can imagine it, and I shudder each time I think about it. STEP 1, was running back to the truck to see if I had come compatible memory that I could put into the computer - I did. At least now I could get my diagnostics program to boot (but not run).

STEP 2 - Uninstalling all but their paid up subscription to Norton 360. After what seemed like endless reboots, the programs were gone and the PC was much faster than when I first arrived. Defragging the hard disk helped even more. This brings me to STEP 3 - To run my virus/trojan/rootkit utilities. Quite often when you have more than one anti-virus running, not only will it slow the PC down, but make it EASIER for a virus, trojan, or worm to slip through. 45 minutes later, the Malwarebytes Quick scan finished with a grand total of 1,113 infections. My other utility (good for rooting out rootkits, did not find any, however, it detected a little over 2500 Trojans on the computer).

Three hours, countless reboots, a recommendation that they change all of their internet passwords, a pinky-swear that they would run a quick-scan with Malwarebytes twice-a-month, and the sale and install of one DDR2 stick later - I left. 

The moral of this story [ed. - well maybe 2 morals], is find a good anti-virus [I always recommend Symantec Internet Security 2012], keep it up-to-date and let it do it's job. The 2nd one is pretty simple: Memory is cheap (perhaps cheaper than it's ever been) - buy as much as your PC and OS will use.

TODAY'S SERMON HAS ENDED

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