Most viruses come from either visiting an infected Website or opening an e-mail that infected your computer. You may be wondering why your anti-virus didn't catch the virus. The answer is complex and nuanced. Computer viruses are strikingly similar to the viruses that impact our physical health.
Price: $50 - $85, depending on level of infection
Turnaround Time: 5 - 10 hours.
If you would like to try removing malware from your computer yourself, these are the software tools we use and the order in which we run them:
Price: $50 - $85, depending on level of infection
Turnaround Time: 5 - 10 hours.
If you would like to try removing malware from your computer yourself, these are the software tools we use and the order in which we run them:
Avoiding Viruses
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Why, if I have anti-virus, did I still get infected?
Primarily because if your anti-virus truly stopped all threats, your computer would be very slow and cumbersome to use. Along these lines, the architecture of your WWW browser (e.g., Firefox) allows both the bad and the good of the Internet, in order to allow it to display content and personalize your browsing experience. A locked down browser is not slower, but it will be cumbersome to use. When I get a computer with good anti-virus that still got infected, it is almost always the case that the user was not updating Windows, their browser or browser plugins and/or they were not surfing safely. |
Update All Legitimate Software
Since the mid to late 00s, updating your software has been the most important part of avoiding viruses. You get sick more when you're a kid because you aren't immunized against as many upper respiratory infections. It's the same with your PC. Malware is omnipresent on the Web. An unpatched system with antivirus is at greater risk than a patched system without antivirus. |
Use and Update Good Antivirus
We recommend Eset. We recommend against Norton and McAffee, but both are (usually) better than no antivirus. The benefit of free antivirus is that you don't have to juggle complex subscription processes, such as the ones that Norton and McAffee use to confuse customers. |
Run Malware Scans Regularly
Sadly, your antivirus does not stop or clean up all malware. Running regular scans with programs that find smaller, more cumulative malware is necessary to keep a PC safe. We recommend CCleaner, Malware Bytes, and AdwCleaner. |
Practice Safe Surfing
Be careful what you click on and try to stay away from sites that offer 'free' stuff, games, porno, and gambling. You need to be able to tell the difference between a legitimate popup, an annoying popup, and a malicious popup. If you commit to doing the first three things above (updates, anti-virus, and malware scans), you don't have to worry as much about safe surfing. |