Free or cheap Firewall for an ACER laptop?

kobracai

Anyone know a firewall for a ACER Aspire E1-570 Laptop, Intel® Core™ i3-3217U processor, Windows 8 ? I tried downloading the ones recommended in the main Antivirus article on MSE but it said the specs didn’t match with the firewall
I just had to pay £70 for rebooting because I caught a few viruses, looks like Avast isn’t enough to stop them
Cheap or preferably free
Thank you for your help

gardner1

kobracai wrote: »

Anyone know a firewall for a ACER Aspire E1-570 Laptop, Intel® Core™ i3-3217U processor, Windows 8 ? I tried downloading the ones recommended in the main Antivirus article on MSE but it said the specs didn’t match with the firewall
I just had to pay £70 for rebooting because I caught a few viruses, looks like Avast isn’t enough to stop them
Cheap or preferably free
Thank you for your help

Nothing wrong with avast ......instal malwarebytes as well and that should be enough.Out of interest who did you pay £70 and what was the problem

althas

Use WIndows built in Firewall, nothing wrong with that

INstall an anti-virus and a mallware scanner as well

I must admit, I use Windows built in anti virus for a long time now, and Mallawarebytes is a nice free mallware

Just never EVER get Norton. I HATE it with a passion :-)

I suspect the £70 was from one of those virus that locks your machine and you have to pay for an unlock code? I hope not, but suspect it may have been

DCFC79

kobracai wrote: »

Anyone know a firewall for a ACER Aspire E1-570 Laptop, Intel® Core™ i3-3217U processor, Windows 8 ? I tried downloading the ones recommended in the main Antivirus article on MSE but it said the specs didn’t match with the firewall
I just had to pay £70 for rebooting because I caught a few viruses, looks like Avast isn’t enough to stop them
Cheap or preferably free
Thank you for your help

Been using Avast for ages and been fine with regards to viruses

quidsinquentin

DCFC79 wrote: »

Been using Avast for ages and been fine with regards to viruses

+1 - my Avast has stopped everything thrown at it so far, even caught a couple of nasties.

Btw, are you using a router?

Don't routers provide some protection? Using one with the Windows firewall and a standard one should give you plenty of protections. Add in an anti-virus and maybe Malwarebytes and you should be fine.

kobracai

I didn’t have a firewall before, only Avast. I bought this laptop 2 months ago, Windows 8 firewall evidently doesn’t work much (unless it’s turned off? But I wouldn’t see why Currys would do it…)
The virus “symptoms” were not being able to connect to the Internet, the videos not playing the sound and PC being overall very slow and “not responding” notices all over the place. I ran an Avast scan and there was a virus. Decided to take it to a shop (Gigabyte Electronics Ltd. In Tottenham Court Road if you guys live in London) and got charged £70 to reboot it, losing all the programs and files, luckily programs were all free and I saved all the file in a USB (shop assistant said there were 4 viruses/malware). Thanks God I still hadn’t bought Office and it would have been an even bigger waste of money

Just for a rainy day, does anyone know a good Electronics shop at inexpensive prices?

I’ll get Avast and Malwarebytes this time too... just can’t figure out why a brand new laptop with Windows 8 in built firewall would be so subject to viruses? And I am very careful in general about I download

PS: Do you guys also know how to get a THREE broadband dongle to surf with a 02 sim card? Do I need to register the 02 profile in the dongle?

Thank you for your patience

kobracai

I didn’t have a firewall before, only Avast. I bought this laptop 2 months ago, Windows 8 firewall evidently doesn’t work much (unless it’s turned off? But I wouldn’t see why Currys would do it…)

The virus “symptoms” were not being able to connect to the Internet, the videos not playing the sound and PC being overall very slow and “not responding” notices all over the place. I ran an Avast scan and there was a virus. Decided to take it to a shop (Gigabyte Electronics Ltd. In Tottenham Court Road if you guys live in London) and got charged £70 to reboot it, losing all the programs and files, luckily programs were all free and I saved all the files in a USB (shop assistant said there were 4 viruses/malware). Thanks God I still hadn’t bought Office and it would have been an even bigger waste of money

Just for a rainy day, does anyone know a good Electronics shop at inexpensive prices?

I’ll get Avast and Malwarebytes this time too... just can’t figure out why a brand new laptop with Windows 8 in built firewall would be so subject to viruses? And I am very careful in general about I download

PS: Do you guys also know how to get a THREE broadband dongle to surf with a 02 sim card? Do I need to register the 02 profile in the dongle?

Thank you for your patience

JJ_Egan

Be aware that you may have saved the virus to the USB stick .Scan it before installing .
A firewall will not stop virus / trojan etc .

Kernel_Sanders

kobracai wrote: »

Decided to take it to a shop (Gigabyte Electronics Ltd. In Tottenham Court Road if you guys live in London) and got charged £70 to reboot it, losing all the programs and files, luckily programs were all free and I saved all the files in a USB

Surely you would have had the same result by doing a factory restore (for free)?

kobracai wrote: »

PS: Do you guys also know how to get a THREE broadband dongle to surf with a 02 sim card? Do I need to register the 02 profile in the dongle?

The dongle is locked to 3, just like a phone might be.

agrinnall

Windows Firewall, Avast AV, Malwarebytes, total cost zero, sorted.

flashg67

BTW - you can reinstall Office if needed - either with the CD you purchase or re-downloading the files and entering your key code (presuming you've kept a note of it of course)