If you work on computers, you’ve undoubtedly encountered a rogue anti-virus program. These programs disguise themselves as real antivirus programs, trick the user into installing them, and claim the user has viruses all over their system. Often times, the only virus is the rogue antivirus program itself. These programs can be trojans, viruses, or just an attempt to get the user to pay money by claiming it will get rid of the (non-existent) viruses on your system.. and doing nothing.
The problem is, these Fake antivirus programs can be a real pain to get rid of completely. That’s where Remove Fake Antivirus comes in.
Remove Fake Antivirus 1.32 is used to remove:
1. Cyber Security
2. Alpha Antivirus
3. Braviax
4. Windows Police Pro
5. Antivirus Pro 2010
6. PC Antispyware 2010
7. FraudTool.MalwareProtector.d
8. Winshield2009.com
9. Green AV
10. Windows Protection Suite
11. Total Security 2009
12. Windows System Suite
13. Antivirus BEST
14. System Security
15. Personal Antivirus
16. System Security 2009
17. Malware Doctor
18. Antivirus System Pro
19. WinPC Defender
20. Anti-Virus-1
21. Spyware Guard 2008
22. System Guard 2009
23. Antivirus 2009
24. Antivirus 2010
25. Antivirus Pro 2009
26. Antivirus 360 and
27. MS Antispyware 2009
The program seems to be updated fairly regularly by the software developer, which is good because new rogue antivirus programs are released all the time, and hopefully will be added to future versions.
It is available for download from the developer’s site, where you’ll also find other useful utilities to protect your system.
Well, it’s called Microsoft Security Essentials and it’s available for download from Microsoft. I’ve installed it on several customer computers and have been rather happy with it. I just got around to installing it on a machine of mine, however, because I keep my system from getting infected in the first place, my machine is not really a good testing environment. But I digress…
The Microsoft Malware Protection Center blog has posted some interesting numbers. After its first week, Security Essentials has already been installed more than 1.5 million times. From the approximately 535,000 machines reporting statistics, MSE has logged over 4 million detections.
44% of MSE users are already running Windows 7 with XP following at 33% and the remaining 23% on Vista. The number of detections per OS is also interesting. 52% of the 4 million reported were found on Windows XP systems compared to only 32% on Vista.
Windows 7 users fared even better. Though they represent the largest group of MSE users, only 16% of detections came from systems running Microsoft’s latest OS. The post also reports 1/3 of these machines are using the 64-bit version, which “is even more resistant to malware than 32-bit due to PatchGuard,” states Microsoft’s Joe Faulhaber.
Surprising that over half of the detections come from only 33% of users? Not really.
Go download and try out Microsoft Security Essentials yourself, and let me know in the comments how you like it? Is it better than the paid apps (like Norton or McAfee), or existing free anti-virus (like AVG or Avira)?
I can’t tell you how many times this little application has saved me: Winsock XP Fix
I keep it on my thumb drive so I always have it when I need it. And although the name says XP Fix, it works in other versions of Windows as well.
The Winsockfix Utility will:
Detect your current Operating System
Release the IP address, taking you “Offline”
Reset the TCP stack using Netsh.exe (Windows XP only)
Delete the current Registry TCP and Winsock Values
Import new “Working” Registry Values
Backup any Current “Hosts” file
Replace the “Hosts” file with a default one
Reboot the Computer
Often times, as a computer repair guy, you’ll encounter someone who can’t connect to the internet, and when the problem doesn’t seem to be related to any network hardware, it’s probably related to the TCP/IP stack, the HOSTS file or some registry settings. This mostly happens when adware, malware or viruses change these settings or modify the files needed to connect to the internet. When you get rid of the problem source, the files it modified are still jacked up.
That’s where this program comes to the rescue. Make it the first thing you try, before spending countless hours troubleshooting other things or reinstalling programs, and you’ll have super fast resolution times and can move on to your next customer.
Digsby, for those unfamiliar with it, is a chat program. But it’s much, much more than that.
Yes it will allow you to be logged in to all the popular IM networks: AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, Jabber, and more.
It also supports Facebook chat, with status updates and news feeds from your Facebook friends.
Also has Twitter integration, even though I prefer a dedicated Twitter app, like TweetDeck.
Probably the best feature, the one I find indispensable and can no longer live without, is the ability to check numerous email accounts. You get audio and visual notifications of new emails, previews of the email, and even has the ability to ‘Mark as Read’, ‘Archive’, ‘Delete’ or ‘Report Spam’ on new emails.
Because I have 16 email addresses that I use, all for various reasons, this is my favorite feature of Digsby. I’m able to keep my inboxes at zero, because of the instant notifications on every one.
The chat features are great too, showing which of your friends are available, no matter what chat program they use. And its fully skinnable, meaning you can make it look just the way you want.
Check out the new introduction video from the guys at Digsby:
The only drawback: Digsby will try to install a bunch of extra crap when you install it, so don’t just click ‘Next, Next, Next’ when installing. Pay attention to the install screens and make sure you uncheck the authorization to install some of the unnecessary add-ons.
I discovered this program from the incredibly useful site ghacks.net a few days ago. Often times, viruses or malware will disable Windows features, and even after removing the virus these Windows utilities will remain disabled. This is where the program Re-Enable comes in handy.
Developed by Tangomouse the program has the ability to restore functionality to these Windows features:
Windows Registry
Command Line Tool
Windows Task Manager
System Restore Config
Folder Options
Run command
The ghacks article explains that:
The program will display all support functions in its interface. All are checked by default and a click on the Enable button will enable these again. Nothing will happen if they are already enabled. Users who only want to enable a specific function can uncheck the other options in the interface easily.
The file can be downloaded from Softpedia, it works with XP, Vista and Windows 7, and the best thing about it: It’s portable. So you can add it to your thumb drive and have it handy whenever you encounter a Windows installation that has been crippled by a virus.
If you work on computers, you’ve undoubtedly encountered a rogue anti-virus program. These programs disguise themselves as real antivirus programs, trick the user into installing them, and claim the user has viruses all over their system.
![1232386015_digsby_833x833[1]](http://eastbaypcrepair.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/1232386015_digsby_833x8331-150x150.png "1232386015_digsby_833x833[1]")
![computer_virus[1]](http://eastbaypcrepair.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/computer_virus1-263x300.jpg "computer_virus[1]")
