Inconvenient

[PinkFloyd]

My 900 fucking dollar toshiba laptop has a virus on it. I am telling you guys this because I probably won't be on vt until it's fixed. Btw: I'm using my iPod touch right now and it's not working for me. So yeh.

[Lost in the Echo]

Yeah I hate viruses, I get them all the time on my laptop. I usually just use my Playstation 3 to do anything on the internet, it runs way faster than my laptop and I don't think you can get a virus using a PS3 to do shit on the internet. So yeah, computers are a big pain in the ass because of all the viruses.

[Human]

This laptop I'm on has about 9001. No joke. Just get a good antivirus, I like 'bulldog'

[Cognizant]

Hence why I switched to a Mac ;)
:P Not really, but that sucks. Hope you get it fixed soon!

[FreeFall]

I hope you can get it fixed! Viruses, malware, spyware, I hate all of them and I seem to be a magnet for them all. Once had a rootkit, don't even know how I got that off. There's some pretty good free anti-virus/removal programs online to help you out (:

[Stephan]

That sucks, if I were you I'd try and solve it myself and use one of those free tech support forums, that's how I cleared my computer off from a trojan.

But hey whatever suits you is probably the way to go, hope your computer makes a safe recovery!

[Skyhawk]

Did you have antivirus installed beforehand?

[wild1]

Maybe you can make a restore point and go back to before you got the virus.

[Mirage]

Did you check out the sticky in Tech Junkies Paradise about virus removal? It may help you remedy the issue

Also! Moved to TJP for hopefully more replies

[Silicate Wielder]

well windows is the mother of all virus attractions.



there are 40 known viruses for mac and another 40 known viruses for linux/unix. however, most require root or administrator access to be used.

and around 600,000 known viruses for windows. and windows' security protocol allows these trheats to install themselves easily.

No computer is safe from viruses.

unless you want to do gaming use mac or unix. its better that way. :)

info found here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/10/06/linux_vs_windows_viruses/

[Axw_JD]

well windows is the mother of all virus attractions.



there are 40 known viruses for mac and another 40 known viruses for linux/unix. however, most require root or administrator access to be used.

and around 600,000 known viruses for windows. and windows' security protocol allows these trheats to install themselves easily.

No computer is safe from viruses.

unless you want to do gaming use mac or unix. its better that way. :)

info found here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/10/06/linux_vs_windows_viruses/

Not true by a long shot. Security wise, Windows is actually more likely to be safeguarded and safer than their counterparts if only by the sheer amount of attacks it has to face. As the de facto standard for computers, is the #1 target for malware, which also means is the #1 in security updates, with Microsoft having a pretty good track record (specially starting with Vista) of delivering them in a very timely manner after a security hole is found.

Windows 8 adds a lot more behind the scenes security enhancements, but the best ones are the idiot-proof enforcements they added that will stop 99% of viruses and other malware from ever entering the system: asking the user, in a very alarming manner, if this potentially unsafe file is what he really wants to open. The myth that Windows is unsafe, or a magnet for viruses, and other Operating Systems aren't are maintained only by the sheer stupidity of the average user. If you think Linux is better because it makes a lot of trivial tasks a thousand times more complicated for the average user, I will agree that in that sense it is better. Otherwise, it is only better for a very select few (and if you claim that "one OS is better than the other because this has viruses" and whatnot, you aren't part of that group).

Free virus removal tools from best to worst performance-wise (do NOT look them up on Google. I can almost guarantee you WILL get some sort of malware pretending to be one of these if you do!):
-Microsoft Security Essentials (Add-on for XP, Vista, 7. Part of Windows 8)
-AVG Free (free for home use)
-avast! (free for home use)
-Avira (free for home use)

When I say performance, I mean how much they negatively impact performance of the system, and how much resources they use. MSE sort of ties up with AVG in Win7 and down, with AVG having a slightly better catch rate with an increased resources usage. With MSE tightly integrated into Win8, and the new security features on Win8, it easily outperforms AVG in every front. Some paid antivirus software WILL be better in the catch rate department, but will consume exponentially more resources.

Better browsing habits, and more common sense on what you allow to download, install and run on your system, are far better than any antivirus. In fact, Windows does NOT need an antivirus of any kind if you know exactly what you are doing 100% of the time.

PROTIP: The more illegal downloads you make, the higher your chances of catching something nasty are. Illegally downloading music, movies or games is a faster, guaranteed way to catch undesirable malware than looking up porn. You can sandbox your browsing experience (especially useful are Opera and Safari with their Private Browsing options. Other browsers implementations of this is between bad and useless. IE10 is a good alternative though).

[Skyhawk]

Or comodo for a good free AV. I use Kaspersky for an antivirus myself and it's one of the best, but it's a bit of a resource hog.
The windows registry is easy to hack once you know your way around it.

Perhaps the OP was downloading something shouldn't have been? ;)

[Silicate Wielder]

Youd be amased how many security updates I get weekly. Windows is slow at getting these patched where as ubuntu I usually get a security update atleast twice a week. not to mention I don't have to reboot for these updates to finish installing.

Also Ubuntu doesn’t use a registry :) I'm not saying to quit using windows and switch to something different I'm just saying that its got a ton of problems that we Mac and Linux users don't have.

[Heavyrain4life]

I recommend malwarebytes. Its one of the better free antivirus, and its more secure than AVG in some areas.

[PinkFloyd]

My mom bought 2 disks that are supposed to restore the laptop to factory condition and it worked so the virus is gone. (I am now using web root)