Help! Am I protected?

J

jo108

Geek Trainee
Please help me because I have next to no idea what I'm doing. I wanted to get virus protection, I used to have norton, but somehow that sort of fell off my (laptop) computer when I moved house and connected to the Internet from my new location. I have a new broadband supplier who tells me their software doesn't like Norton and they recommend AVG or McAfee. I just downloaded and bought Noadware (writing this, I'm also wondering why I didn't follow their recommendation). The Noadware free PC scan came up with 84 thingies, 77 of which were dangerous or severe. After buying it and cleaning out those nasty thingies, I came across the following noadware review: http://www.adwarereport.com/mt/archives/000023.html which left me feeling a bit worried! I've seen several other v positive noadware reviews on various different sites though.
So 2 questions: 1) is noadware good or crap?
2) Am I now virus protected or do I need to buy some additional different type of protection for viruses as opposed to adware/spyware/malware? And if so what should that be? (OK, that was 3 questions, sorry)
Thank you people in advance for your invaluable advice
jo x
 
i wouldn't recommend norton, but avg antivir, which is free, and adaware se is also pretty good, but pair t up with spybot search and destroy, one finds things the other doesn't, yes you are protected, but think of yourself with a wooden shield

I never heard of no adaware

now if you get antivir, and adaware se, and s s&d then consider yourself with a steel shield
 
It seems you're a bit confused about the differences between virii and spyware. Virii are self-replicating programs which aim to do some or all of the following activities:

  • Embed itself deeply in your operating system
  • Reproduce by infecting other vulnerable networked computers
  • Open up a back door for a malicious individual to take control of your system
  • Use your system to send junk mail, attack other systems, etc
  • Steal your information, log keystrokes, etc.
  • Spy on usage habits
  • Hijack inter-system communications

Windows is vulnerable to virtually every kind of junk out there. Unless strong measures are taken before it is connected to the Internet, it is likely to be compromised beyond repair in almost no time. When I say that it cannot be repaired, by any anti-virus, I am referring to an infection by a rootkit. A rootkit is an especially nasty type of virus that actually hijacks the central-most portion of your operating system: the kernel.


Rootkit Illustration​

Once the kernel is compromised, no software running on the infected system can be trusted. Since all software relies on the trustworthyness of the kernel, the only viable solution is to completely wipe and reinstall the operating system from scratch. For more info about security and networking, see our FAQ.

-AT
 
I have used Norton for 4 years now, and as long as you spend some time setting it up, I have no problems while on-line.
 
Yellowdrama said:
I have used Norton for 4 years now, and as long as you spend some time setting it up, I have no problems while on-line.
Click to expand...
I've worked on plenty of systems which ran NortonAV and were compromised anyway. The reason for this is probably the fact that Symantec is very lax about the frequency of the updates they release.
 
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