Hi Steph53:
I have some ideas below this paragraph, but before I go into
them...This type of problem is a major reason why I upgraded to Win XP
Pro with service pack 2. I found that NAV and others didn't afford me
the protection I needed, and that with so many trojans out there I was
having to constantly restore Win 2000, which is no small task. (see
http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBG/TIP3200/rh3200.htm) On XP it's a few mouse
clicks and your system will take you back to before you got the trojan
virus (unless the trojan also disables your restore feature, which HAS
happened to me, but not very often...)
GOING FORWARD:
================
You can attempt a system restore, but, unless you are a geek, I would
actually recommend bringing your PC to a local "puter geek" and having
him/her clean your machine (find one at http://local.yahoo.com/ ), and
then you may also want to install a personal firewall that's in synch
with your anti-virus, i.e. install norton personal firewall
http://www.symantec.com/sabu/nis/npf/ The suites tend to work better
together than having different countermeasure programs from different
vendors. Maybe you want to upgrade to Win XP SP2, depending on your
budget and your application system requirements. Adaware is the best,
so I'd stick with it. (I use it too.)
You may also want to try some of the new browsers like firefox or
opera. http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
http://www.opera.com/download/?ver=8.00b1 . They are less prone to
viruses as most hackers right now exploit Internet Explorer
vulnerabilities. This will change in the future.
Also, don't open any attachments ever from anyone you don't know. Use
the email scanning feature in NAV if you use Outlook for your email.
Know that there is no way to protect yourself 100% from these attacks.
The only way to even get close is to only go to trusted sites that you
know will not knowingly push viruses to you, i.e. the biggies like
CNN, amazon, etc. I actually got a virus from a forbes email
newsletter, so there are no guarantees. Since you (like me) like to
play google researcher, that may not be realistic.
Another approach would be to use one computer for "surfing" and
another for productivity. Keep the productivity machine totally clean
with your applications like MSWord, outlook, excel, quickbooks, Adobe,
Dreamweaver, whatever...etc. Or, use an old MAC
http://search.ebay.com/mac_Apple-Desktops_Mac-OS-9_W0QQsofocusZpfQQsbrftogZ1QQfromZR10QQcatrefZC12QQsacategoryZ25440QQcatrefZC6QQa26444Z-24QQa13Z26530QQa12Z-24QQgcsZ1506QQpfidZ1812QQreqtypeZ1QQpfmodeZ1QQalistZa26444Q2Ca13Q2Ca12Q2Ca3801QQpf_queryZmacQQsotrtypeZ1QQsotrvalueZ1QQsosortpropertyZ1QQcoactionZcompareQQcopagenumZ1QQcoentrypageZsearch
for surfing and email because very few viruses are written for Macs.
This will also change in the future.
AOL will market to you that they are the answer. IMHO, AOL is never
the answer. You give up far more than what you get, but it may be OK
for you. http://www.aol.com/price_plans/bfsbroadband.adp
I hope these ideas help you in the future...even though I've not
provided a solution to your current problem other than to restore the
system.
Good luck,
Margi |
