EVERYTHING on a go slow

50Twuncle

My Win 8.1 laptop, this morning - took an age to boot up - my Win 7 desktop (i7/SSD/12Gb) took longer than normal to boot up - my internet connection is ssslllooowww (upload 4Mb / Download 450Kb)
I was wondering what could cause all of this - I have (of course) scanned both PC's for nasties (AVG and Malwarebytes) - Nothing found !!
Could this be the end of the world or can anyone enlighten me as to a reason ?
eg) Has MS put out a go-slow update ?

grumpycrab

Turn off router for 30secs then turn back on. What speed do you get (and what is normal).

JJ_Egan

My guess would be AVG the culprit for slow boot on two devices .

50Twuncle

JJ_Egan wrote: »

My guess would be AVG the culprit for slow boot on two devices .

Thanks - good point
What is the present best free option for AV ?

giraffe69

I gave up on AVG for similar reasons and switched to MSE. There will be abuse on the thread about its alleged poor detection rate but it has done its job fine in the last six months. I also use Malwarebytes.

50Twuncle

I gave my router a break for an hour and on rebooting - both PC's are back to their original fast boot time and reasonable connection speed - so I have no idea what it was playing at !!

johnmc

Both my laptop and the 2 PC's I use at work have been very slow this week.

On reboot it's obvious that MS have released some updates.

It slows the machine whilst loading and gives unexpected results until rebooted.

Geep

giraffe69 wrote: »

I gave up on AVG for similar reasons and switched to MSE. There will be abuse on the thread about its alleged poor detection rate but it has done its job fine in the last six months. I also use Malwarebytes.

No abuse, I hope, but Microsoft does appear to have (at the very least) lowered its target for what MSE does. Back last year, there was an illuminating interview with a senior program manager of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, during which it was said that Microsoft Security Essentials was just a “baseline” that’s designed to “always be on the bottom” of antivirus tests. The manager said Microsoft sees MSE as a first layer of protection and advises Windows users to use a third-party antivirus instead.
Worth reading in greater detail for anyone interested. (http://www.howtogeek.com/173291/goodbye-microsoft-security-essentials-microsoft-now-recommends-you-use-a-third-party-antivirus/)

Note however MS is not saying that MSE is not effective in what it is designed to do, but that it is now no longer designed partly to pass AV test regimes with a good score.

DCFC79

50Twuncle wrote: »

Thanks - good point
What is the present best free option for AV ?

No idea if available for 7 or 8.1 but Avast would be an option if it is.

50Twuncle

I am currently running ESET on-line scanner - which has picked up a problem in 2 locations
AVG and Malwarebytes both missed it
A variant of W32/Hiddenstart
The scan is taking forever and is only up to 48% in 1 1/4 hours
I hope that ESET will clear this - not only report it ?

50Twuncle

And now a third - W32/Bundled.toolbar.google.D - Potentially unsafe application


I am normally extremely careful when I download anything from anywhere - I do not open Email attachments from anyone without scanning them first and have not been on any suspect sites recently - so have no idea where it came from......