Tag: antivirus

Good Free Virus Scanners and Antiviruses?

Posted onAuthorTruXterLeave a comment

If you say you want “good and free” as you ask me for advice on a virus scanner or antivirus, don’t get mad at me if I tell you to remove your Avast, Kaspersky or AVG. I have zero faith in either one of those. ZERO. Simply because I have done my tests and the results were what I suspected. Garbage.
Microsoft Security essentials and Microsoft windows defender are the only antiviruses (virus protection) I recommend. Even though virus scanner and antivirus are two different things. One scans, the other monitors with a scan option.
If you want a good virus scanner then you must understand the maker of the program made it to scan and focused on scanning manually only. This is a good thing. Doesn’t bloat down your computer running scans when if it was a good virus protection, there’d be nothing to scan to begin with.
From a previous post here about virus scanners and antiviruses.
RogueKiller.exe  This will hunt down the deepest of virus.
ATF-Cleaner.exe helps clear up what’s on your computer in folders that you got locked out of in the attack. empties trash and cache and a bunch of stuff all at the same time
Spybot – weak these days but doesn’t kill you to give it a scan and let it clean a few things up too.
[Microsoft Essentials Windows 7] | [Windows Defender Windows 8]..Not a bad free Virus Scanner. Works pretty good. Works best if installed before you get the virus. Protects better than any other virus scanner. Free or otherwise.
unhide.exe will get your icons back if you lost them and your files back if they disappeared when the virus hit you.
Malwarebytes– free and good strong software
Super Anti-Spyware – Stupid name, great product. oh and it has a free version.
Emergency Kit Scanner – I use this one anytime a friend calls me for help
MVP’s Hosts – block your computer from accessing known virus site. Stops advertisements too. Not a virus scanner or antivirus in teh sense of realtime protection, but still a good addition.

The basic rule of internet safety is watching out for the b.y.c.a.k. virus. b.y.c.a.k. = between your chair and keyboard.
this means, don’t open weird emails. Don’t go to weird websites. Don’t click impulse click bait links on Facebook or twitter or the like.

Remember these and you have a better chance than 75% of the people on the internet.

Still no matter how safe you are, you can still get a virus from legitimate uses of your computer on the internet. If this happens, then be wise and either  wipe and reinstall windows, or take the time to run every  program in the link above (this is so much more fun and feels very accomplished in the end). Don’t forget to update the programs and do it again all week long, just to be sure.

How to fight CRYPTOLOCKER

Posted onAuthorTruXterLeave a comment

The way to beat Cryptolocker is pretty much like all ransomware. With one exception.
Hopefully you have a great back up process and can separate all computers from the infected computer on your network.
Start with these old school free tools of the trade.
Run them all if you want to make sure you get everything.
RogueKiller.exe  This will hunt down the deepest of virus.
ATF-Cleaner.exe helps clear up what’s on your computer in folders that you got locked out of in the attack. empties trash and cache and a bunch of stuff all at the same time
Spybot – weak these days but doesn’t kill you to give it a scan and let it clean a few things up too.
[Microsoft Essentials Windows 7] | [Windows Defender Windows 8]..Not a bad free Virus Scanner. Works pretty good. Works best if installed before you get the virus. Protects better than any other virus scanner. Free or otherwise.
unhide.exe will get your icons back if you lost them and your files back if they disappeared when the virus hit you.
Malwarebytes– free and good strong software
Super Anti-Spyware – Stupid name, great product. oh and it has a free version.
Emergency Kit Scanner – I use this one anytime a friend calls me for help

So… What is Cryptolocker? Cryptolocker is like all ransom-ware of the past. In fact it looks just like antivirus 2012 except. Cryptolocker comes right out and says “hey we locked down your file, pay us and we will unlock your file, if you do not pay us, we will delete the password that we have on file for you file and you pretty well screwed forever”. This is straight up extortion.  no matter what they call it, it is what it’s function is. To brutally force you to pay the virus maker’s fee to get your files back.

Protip.. Install MSE (Microsoft security essentials) before you get any virus.. It doesn’t cost anything and uses very little resources. Plus MSE is made by the people who made your operating system, it knows when unauthorized activity has occurred.. and well, it should be their responsibility to secure and protect your computer.

Cryptowall 3.0 Is the same but more developed to protect it’s self. Here’s Trend Micro explaining how Encryptowall 3.0 functions and looks.

and please quit opening attachments without verifying their validity.

XP Antivirus 2012 – Scam

Posted onAuthorTruXter2 Comments

Well a technician at the office got the virus “XP Antivirus 2012” for me to remove from his hp mini.
steady pop ups. No executable files would run.

To fix your .exe executable files to work again, you need to edit your registry and change one insert to say exefile
open regedit by right clicking the file in your windows folder, select RUN AS, uncheck the box that says “protect my computer and data from….” and then click ok. The regedit.exe will open
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
Scroll down till you find the folder icon labeled “EXE”
look for (Default). Right click it and select “modify”. a text box will pop up and just type: exefile
and then click ok.
Now your executables are restored to functioning again.

reg fix for Xp

Now… Since the virus runs as a spin off of an old virus that has been floating around, the fix is similar for each version of windows it was created for so here is the fix for the windows 7 version of this virus

Just scroll down till you see the virus scanners and all of that and use them all. They are all very important in removing this stupid thing.

RogueKiller.exe
ATF-Cleaner.exe helps clear up what’s on your computer in folders that you got locked out of in the attack.
Spybot
ESET Online Virus Scanner  to clear out the Virus
[Microsoft Essentials Windows 7] | [Windows Defender Windows 8]Not a bad free Virus Scanner. Works pretty good.
unhide.exe will get your icons back and your files back if they disappeared when the virus hit you.

If I didn’t make it clear before. This is not a real virus scanner. This is not a real antivirus. This is a virus and will cause stress on your regular computer usage. You will be at your best interest to remove this resource hog bloated garbage and do not give these people money. do not give these people your personal information.

THIS IS A VIRUS!

Online Malware Scans

Posted onAuthorTips Of Tech

If you are like me and do not like bloating your computer with virus scanners and anti virus programs that run the whole time your computer is on. Then you at least need to scan every now and again to make sure you do not have a computer virus or some sort of spy ware. Most people just call it malware.So for you , the better bet is to use an online scanner to help locate and remove the virus or spyware you may obtain in a regular day’s computer use.
See I have a funny little phrase that describes the usage of a search engine. It’s like playing mine sweeper, Some times you get a nice good run, sometimes you get nailed left and right. BOOM. ” You may be infected” I hate that dang fake virus scanner. So it’s all about CTRL ALT DELETE and pray your web browser does not re-open the same dang page again.
So in my years of computer repair and internet fun I have found a few sites that do not charge you to use their online virus scanner. and they are not a trap or have any special usage clause. Also sometimes your installed virus scanner gets a virus that attaches it’s self to the virus scanner, so now you can’t remove the virus because the virus scanner is not self destructive. (would help if they had a self back up and repaired such issues on reboot).
I now share these with the readers of the TruXtertech.Com Site.
Here is a list of Online Virus scanners that work. For Free
A-Squared online Scanner a very good scanner that seems to be the strongest I know of . I also use the Emergency kit, I keep that malware scanner on a thumb drive.

BitDefender The longest running online malware scanner I know of. This malware scanner has removed a virus from every single computer I have ever used/repaired. Bitdefender also sells a copy of their virus scanner from their site. But it runs like all antivirus programs. Constantly.

Eset Online Virus Scanner. Menu to select the type of scan and actions you would like it to take.

Panda– online scanner

CA– Formerly InnoculateIT formerly Etrust now just CA. I love their virus scanner and performance tools. but again they are constant so I use the online scanner and that’s plenty for me. Their virus scanner is worth a buy though. So if you know someone who needs protection and they aren’t as OCD as me when it comes to keeping the pc fast, do it, get them CA for their birthday or Christmas or just for the heck of it.

Single file Virus Scanners. For scanning something you just downloaded to make sure it doesn’t have a Trojan in it or any other type of malware.

Virus Chief – Uses a few other online single file virus scanners, so you get a large number of virus scanners at one time.
Virus Total – same as above, mostly the same virus scanners.

Jotti– this one is the one that has been around the longest. The guy used to list the “latest in the wild” which would show what cooties have recently been caught, It was fun to watch that page. I guess he got sick of the wasted bandwidth because of people refreshing the page constantly.

Virscan.org – online single file virus scanner. Scans with like 30 virus scanners at once like the others. Takes a bit longer but it gets confirmed by 30 scanners that you do or do not have a virus in your hands.

Try the list, go through it and scan for a virus see what you get. you may, you may not have malware.

I did a virus scanner comparison using a well known virus and all of these scanners listed. come see how they scored. My test was just to see what virus scanners couldn’t detect it. From that point on, I consider those virus scanners that did not detect the virus, garbage and useless.

Intel buys McAfee for just under $8b

Posted onAuthorTruXter

McAfee sold to Intel for $7.68.
These are two companies I do not like. They are the center of everything bundled with crummy computers. They are the generic item that everyone gets with their new “outa the box” machine. And since so many people have these two, everyone assumes they are the best. ” More people buy Intel than AMD so it must be better” . Well no it’s bundled more often because it’s mass production junk.
Think about it, more people in the world shop at wally mart…………. Why? because it’s there. and convenient.
Mcafee is bundled in everything you buy.
Remember when AOL disks showed up in your mail on a weekly basis? People actually installed it years after broadband became common.
Mcafee calls it’s self an “antivirus” truth is, there is no such thing. There is just software that tell you when you have an active virus on your computer… The virus scanner installs it’s self so deep that you the computer owner can’t unintsall it. So most virus programs are written to attach themselves to the “antivirus program”. This in turn causes the “antivirus” to ignore the virus, because removal of the virus would be suicidal for the antivirus. So let’s just call it a “virus alerter”.

This merger/sell is just a nice way to get all the garbage in one spot.

Now I have to go use a-squared to remove 1829 trojans off of my bosses computer. Neat how symantec 360 has only detected (or notified me of ) one virus while 1728 variations of the virus are directly attached to symantec.

The Official TruXtertech Toolbar

Posted onAuthorTips Of Tech

Official TruXtertech Toolbar

Got tired of Googling all of the tools I use on a regular basis and decided to put these all in one toolbar.  Since I am of the two I.T. guys at my job, This tool bar will come in super handy.

There are antivirus tools. Virus scanner tools and Search Engine optimization tools.

so now when building website, there is tons of media to listen to and SEo tools to ensure the website being designed is properly optimized and handily ready for Bing, Yahoo and Google to crawl about it.

Grab a copy of this toolbar and see for yourself it is very much useful for Most of your IT needs and wants.

Cheap Virus Scanner Comparison

Posted onAuthorTech Review Man5 Comments

I had to do a scan, a known virus, with a number of virus scanners.
I used Jotti’s I used Virscan and I used Virus Total
They each have a mess-load of virus scanners through their site that allows you to scan at one time to see the results of each scanner

1st virus scan results

2nd virus scan results

Here are the results of the most known free or cheap virus scanners and antivirus programs out there, scanning two pieces of malware that we got at the office I work in.
Sad to say, the two most known, most promoted most noted free virus scanners out there, failed to detect this. Sad to say, we got these from a machine that was supposedly protected by Symantec Endpoint. We received an email that told us to update our tax information, and well it was bundled with an executable. The second one is another virus/trojan that was sent in an email disguised as being from Fedex, they sent an executable file saying it would help us track our recently shipped package.. The computer that received this email, the user actually ran th program and it installed and mass emailed her address book with the same message, then it downloaded tons of stuff into the machine, eventually shuts off internet access until an expected time then it opens internet back up quickly to download more updates, then it shuts it down.
So if you have a virus scanner that is cheap or free and want to see how it did in our little test, check the two pdf files I link and see for yourself.
If you do not have adobe pdf reader, I advise you use foxit, it’s ten times faster and much more useful.

Best Free Virus Protection

Posted onAuthorTruXter

Internet safety is an issue that has been nagging at us users for many years. The cold hard facts is that we all need it. some people rest assured in the thought that Microsoft will be releasing a free virus scanner or virus protection of sort really soon. Cold truth is, you had that with vista and tyou learned how to dissable it and complained about it. That pop up that kept asking you if you are sure you want to install something, well expect it to come back for windows 7 and xp and vista, just a better skin. It will not be perfect, otherwise the operating system would be impenetrable. Simply because um… the software is made by the people who made the operating system. Hackers and scammers will be breaking it within  minutes of it’s release.

So for the time being Microsoft’s protection thingy is released, let’s fix ourselves up for cheap. Better than cheap, let’s do this for free.

Protection

Ok start with, DO NOT OPEN EMAIL ATTACHMENTS FROM STRANGERS! Never click a link in your email from your bank. because it’s never your bank, and just to be on the safe side when the email looks serious, close your browser, re-open your browser and type in your banks link manually.

Go to this website mvp’s hosts file Read what is being said there, read it well. Halfway down the page you will see

MVP's Gif

MVP's Gif

There will be a link near it to download a zip file. do it, download the file and copy all of the content onto your desktop. double click the file on your desktop named “mvps” , read what it says, hit your spacebar or any button you wish other than escape (not sure what escape would do) and you are done. you have now blocked your computer from connecting to known  advertisement websites. Many of those advertisement websites  also have foul software called “malware” . Malware includes virus, trojans, worms, adware, spyware and manhy things the like. So if you get a virus and it tries to push a bunch of pop ups on you, you will not get them. you will just get windows that pop up but saying you can not connect to the server. Some times those popups will install more malware on you so it’s great that you limit it.

Ok now that we are in this much of a safe zone, you must know that you are still vulnerable. You can still download a virus and have it install on your computer and compromise your computer. So as a cool little trick; next time you download something from a website go to these three sites and have it scanned for malware.

Virscan.org – This scanner allows you to scan with currently 37 different virus scanners. look at the botto n of the screen and see what the latest scan results show, you can see that some virus scanners will find stuff while others will not., refresh that page and see new results.

Virus total .com Same as the one above, some scanners not the same, so more results possibilities.

Jotti’s Malware scanner, I think is the original. this site used to allow you to see real time results from all scanners. not so much anymore.

If you chose not to install a virus scanner, I suggest you  at least run an online virus scanner once every weak or two. at the least, check twice a month, because you never remember the last time you entered credit card information. so start with these 3  free online virus scanners.

CA Internet Security Online virus scanner. The actual Software reminds me of an old virus scanner from the 90s called innoculateIT.

F Secure Online Scanner Online virus scanner

Bit Defender Online Scanner This one is slow on an infected machine, but it sure gets some results. For years i have used this one, even while using a paid virus scanner, it works very well. if you are on vista or windows seven, right click your Internet explorer icon and select “run as administrator”.

I would suggest Symantec/Norton or Macafee, but last time I checked they both find stuff but will not remove it, then when you buy the software and scan again, it finds nothing. Or at least that is the results I got the past five times I fell for it. Maybe it’s a coincidence, yeah, probably is.

if you want to install a free  virus scanner

Here is a list of the ones to try for free that by the majority of tech guys on the net, have been voted best free online scanners

PCWorld Post on free virus scanners i really can’t believe Avast and Avg are in that list….

I myself chose to install A-squared and set it for all protection modes. It does not run but a tiny process, never gives you a notice, but you can scan with it. and well I do that on a regular basis. Twice a week before bed. or just before I type any personal information into a website. To make sure there are no current cooties.

What to do if you feel you are infected.

shut your computer off and disconnect it from the internet. go to another computer if available. If none are available, or you have no portable thumb drive/ jump drive so you can sneaker mail software to your machine, then you have to do this from the infected machine, just disconect the internet each time you start one of these processes I tell you.

Here is the Download  list (include all of the downloadable software listed above)

Malwarebytes a free scanner that works well. Kind of specific needs though.. it really works.

A-Squared Hijack Free not a scanner but a process killer. kinda like HJT

If your scans show Vitumund or smitfraud or vundu use these two carefully smitfraudfix Also follow these instructions for smitfraudfix usage. Now get VunduFix. safe mode for best results on either program.

To get to safe mode: reboot computer and repeatedly tap the F8 button before the windows  logo and splash screen. Make boot selection and log in. Now run the programs.

If your computer only takes you to Google English try this post by…. well yours truly :-)

Keep them from hunting you out

firewall, best firewall is an internet router, go to the electronics store and get one. or go to amazone or bestbuy.com or go to compusa.com  just do something wise.

Hopefully I helped protect your computer or atleast increased your internet security and savvy.

My research of Finallyfast

Posted onAuthorTruXter

There has been an advertisement on Television lately that I have seen coming up repeatedly. The advertisement talk of a program called “finallyfast” from a website called “finallyfast.com” .
So as usual I do my research before I download anything. then after I download the program i will scan it with as many different virus scanners as I can find.

On first analysis, I find that finally fast is actually hosted on a site “ascentive.com”. That site and it’s files have been noted as being malware with recurring charges to your credit card, that are really hard to get out of.
Site adviser website has noted that the content from ascentive.com is not safe . Siteadviser.

Ok so I went to the website anyway and started reading. They say it’s free from the get go. so I downloaded the file.

REALLY If you want to do a check up of your pc. I advise pcpitstop.com the only thing you need from there is an active x file and I find that activex file very safe.

but anyway I got the file and imediatly headed to Virscan.org and did a quick scan for any kind of computer cooties. This program is supposed to speed up your computer. Let’s just see. Well it turns out that all online scanners for single files, have a 10mb limit. This file from finallyfast.com or let’s say ascentive.com was 10.2 mb. Looks like they are a tad to large . So I compressed the file in a rar and proceeded to scan :-) .
one virus scanner found “Net-Worm.Win32.Bobic.k” could be a false positive but I found that other people found the same thing after the install. here are the results for finallyfast+worm and here are the results of finallyfast+trojan

Here is a forum that talks about the software and solutions.

The phone calls to suport
1st call
2nd call
3rd call
4th call is to ascentive, the mother company.
( They mention spyware striker)
pc speedscan pro I do not recommend installing this!!!!
activespeed Credit card issues.
Scan and sweep useless on xp, bad for vista.

Re-Evaluation of Dr.Web

Posted onAuthorTruXter1 Comment

After years of not touching Dr.Web, I could not remember, in full, why I did not like it. I could not remember why I did not trust it. It has been at least five years since I tried it and someone I see is trusted by quite a few people recommends it. I gave it a go. Well the first download is 14 MB. Quite tiny and happens in a blink — although the file downloaded was actually just a tool to download the actual program. After the download was complete and the install was nearly finished, it asked for a verification key (I did not have one). So the program allowed me to press a button and have a key automatically inserted. Why? Dunno. The scan seemed pretty smooth; I didn’t see the scanner get hung up on anything. The list of files being scanned was pretty steady. Boots and reboots of the system were smooth and there was no delay or hang time from Dr.Web.

I consider any program that you have to find a program from a second party to remove to be malware. If the program does not allow me to see the size of the actual install until after it is finished installing (I had to navigate to the folder it was contained in), I consider it to be deceptive.

Granted, this is a workplace computer. I am not the first employee to use this computer and formatting it is not an option. I did find traces of Limewire once installed on this machine, so you should have a pretty good idea how beat down this machine is because of misuse. Since this program found nothing and ran smoothly, I decided to break out some of the tried and true programs: Ad-Aware, Spybot, and A-Squared. All three found something, and no, it was not all cookies. Ad-Aware found what it labeled as a w32.novarg.a@mm (aka MY DOOM) file. A-Squared found a few hijackers, and Spybot found, like, 60 things.

Now here comes the issue. I decided I do not need this program to start when I start my computer. Since it never found anything, I was not impressed enough that I could leave it on the workplace computer throughout the trial period. I went to un-install Dr.Web, but it wasn’t happening. The un-install actually tries to install the program again. I went through the whole step of seeing if it would say “before we can install you must un-install; would you like to un-install?” Never happened. Full install right over the current.

So I did a Google search on it. The best information I found was sad and scary, all in one. Delete all registry entries and then go back to the directory of install and delete all signs of Dr.Web. I really do not suggest you do that. I mean, it did not damage this machine. I booted fine afterwards with no errors, but if you are new to ‘regedit,’ stay out. It is much safer that way.

After 14 years of doing this online and nine years on local networks (before the Internet), you would think I learned my lesson. Well, I have learned that sometimes you just have to try stuff and be prepared to put things back together. Good thing I do and can.

Here’s an alternative.

TruXter

Owner and writer of :

iworkwithtech.com  and iworkwithpeople.com