Fed up with getting viruses/Malware

kerrypn

I am so fed up with ending up with Malware/viruses on any computer we get

We have had in the past: Avast, AVG Free, AVG paid, Macafee, Norton and the latest has been Bitdefender. We also had a special adware malware thing I have forgotten the name of in the past too. This has now happened to 3 laptops and 2 desktops, and we have had 3 different providers over 3 different addresses.

We clear the cookies after internet use and do regular scans. We update the software.

Today I have had to take the 2 month old Acer desktop(pride and joy) back to factory settings because some kind of malware/virus had managed to infiltrate the system and I couldnt repair it via Bitdefender.

I wouldn't mind but literally the only sites we use are this one, ebay and paypal, facebook and google mail!

Can someone please tell me what I am doing wrong?

Thanks in advance

debitcardmayhem

you say

I wouldn't mind but literally the only sites we use are this one, ebay and paypal, facebook and google mail!

Do you never click on anything from those sites or emails, it may pay you to try http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm
What do you use to access the internet, and what version of windows do you have on each, and are they up to date for windows and antivirus too?

Edited: why don't you ask here before putting in for repair

somersethillbilly

+1 for the Hosts file, also take a look at Sandboxie.

closed

Are you saying everyone of those products mentioned let something through and couldn't deal with it? If so, you have either been terribly unlucky, or need to be more careful/selective when browsing (assuming infections came from browsing)

If you backup with disk imaging software, then a virus now and then isn't a problem, just a minor nuisance.

Host files need a server running to answer 127.0.0.1 queries if you don't want your browsing experience slowed down.

cookies are nothing to do with viruses and can be cleaned automatically in the browser settings or by using ccleaner at startup

kerrypn

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

you say Do you never click on anything from those sites or emails, it may pay you to try http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm
What do you use to access the internet, and what version of windows do you have on each, and are they up to date for windows and antivirus too?

Edited: why don't you ask here before putting in for repair

Hi

Thanks for replying. No I am very careful about click throughs-occasionally bitdefender does block some of the ads you get on ebay and says bitfender has blocked this etc. I never open attachments without scanning(and very rarely get attachments)

We are on Windows 7 and IE 9 on this one(the new desktop) and the last computer was also on the same(went for a disk drive repair and they lost the computer so we got a new one). The old Acer laptop is on Win XP but is on IE9 and up to date with AV software.

Bitfender is up to date on this pc.

I would have posted on here for help earlier but whatever the virus was, it was systematically working its way through sytem files and the PC was freezing so I had to open in safe mode and start the restore process, didnt want to leave it any longer than I had to.

What is the link above for please?

I have heard of Sandboxes-do they give good protection then? I considered going over to Firefox for browsing but wasnt sure of compatibility etc.

Thanks for all help so far

Thanks again

C_Mababejive

Heres a good start...
http://www.ubuntu.com/

kerrypn

closed wrote: »

Are you saying everyone of those products mentioned let something through and couldn't deal with it? If so, you have either been terribly unlucky, or need to be more careful/selective when browsing.

If you backup with disk imaging software, then a virus now and then isn't a problem, just a minor nuisance.

Host files need a server running to answer 127.0.0.1 queries if you don't want your browsing experience slowed down.

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying

And hand on heart the sites I listed above are all we go on.

The problem never seems to be Trojans or something I have even heard of-I just know about it when it systematically starts corrupting the system

closed

stop going to the site where the infections come from - facebook?

are you sure all problems are virus related?

kerrypn

Is Facebook bad then? I really had no idea :eek:

If that is where they are coming from I won't go on it!

I am not 100% sure but today I am pretty sure we had a nasty there. Two days ago, bitdefender flagged 34 items but all were cookies(I scanned before deleting history).
On shutdown there has been something running silently in the background and something flagged up on the page saying windows was forcing shutdown.
PC been running slow despite running maintenance etc.
When trying to restore to earlier point a series of boxes came up saying shell wasn't working, and another sytem file etc
I am definitely no expert so appreciate your advice, if not a virus what could it be?

AppleMatt

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Heres a good start...
http://www.ubuntu.com/

+1 For Ubuntu :j

closed

many people think it's bad, but not for virus related reasons

We can't guess where they are coming from, or what they are, but as you only mention 4 sites, that's a popular target.

There have been links on this site to infections, fortunately caught by avast before doing any damage. Everyone is one click away from being infected, but fortunately the vast majority of infections are intercepted by antivirus software.

Your symptoms could be totally unrelated to viruses.

Cookies are nothing important.