Is your computer running a lot slower than normal? Are you getting annoying pop-ups when you browse the internet, or being taken to web pages you never requested? Chances are you may be the victim of one or more nasty programs known as viruses, trojans, worms, adware or spyware (there are technical differences between all of the above, but they all can have the effect of ruining your time on your computer).

There are other reasons your PC may be experiencing problems, but infection by the above types of programs is by far the most common, and cleaning infected machines makes up a large percentage of the repair work we do. Cleaning machines can be expensive because of the time taken to find all of the nasties – we have seen machines with tens of thousands of infected files – and can require a lot more technical expertise than the average PC user possesses.

The best idea is to avoid the problem in the first place, and for this you need anti-virus and anti-spyware / adware programs. A number of people (perhaps justifiably) resent having to pay for these, but be assured – if you use the internet, or share files with friends via floppy disks, CDs or USB drives, you WILL get infected! You may lose important data, unknowingly give out sensitive information (like credit card numbers, and personal details), and end up cursing your computer and your friends as you fork out large sums of money to get rid of the problem!

Unfortunately, in our experience anti-virus programs, especially “suites” which also include anti-adware/spyware and firewall programs, often cause problems. There is none that we know of which always operates correctly. Nevertheless, the alternative (i.e. not using one) is not, in our opinion, an option in today’s world.

Over the years, we have stocked most of the major antivirus suites – by Norton, McAfee, Trend Micro and Vet (now CA). For the last couple of years we have recommeded only the Kaspersky product, as we have found that it causes problems far less often than any of the others, and catches nasties that the others don’t.

We would like to offer the following tips to all our customers to help make sure that we don’t see your computer in our workshop, or at least not to have it disinfected!

Do back up all your important information. It is amazing how many people don’t, and then are devastated if a virus or hardware failure causes them to lose months of work, or critical data. USB flash drives or external hard drives are a very convenient way of saving your work, or for a more permanent backup, use CDs or DVDs.

Do have a good antivirus program and anti-spyware/adware program installed, and most importantly, keep them up to date! These programs require regular updating, or they quickly become ineffective. Regularly check the date of your last update to make sure.

If you share files with others via floppy disk, CD, USB drives or over the internet (this includes emails), always scan the file before you open it!

Avoid web sites which offer any of the following:

- Cracking / hacking programs or illegally copied software.

- Unlimited music downloads for free or $x per month.

These are illegal for one, and secondly, the software involved opens up your computer to all sorts of nasty activities by the unscrupulous. Stick to sites like Yahoo Music, Apple iTunes, etc. where you pay by the download, and don’t need to share your hard drive with the whole world.

Pornography – there are some sites which are most likely safe. These would tend to be sites with well known names (like the magazines), where you pay for what you get. Many, many more are not safe.

Never, ever respond to an email or browser page that asks you to re-enter your banking details or personal information, no matter how genuine it looks, without checking by phone or personal visit first! No financial institution to our knowledge will ask you for this information over the internet.

We don’t recommend having Windows set to download and automatically install updates (that’s a whole other problem area!), but we do recommend regularly installing Windows updates after you have created a system restore point yourself, in case something goes wrong! (See Help & Support on the Windows start menu to see how to go about this).

If you see a pop-up message to the effect that your computer is infected with 10,000 spyware programs, and you need to take action NOW to remove them, do not respond – it is a hoax. You are already infected, and if you respond, it will only get worse! Do not click “yes”, “download now”, or even the “X” in the top corner. Just leave the window alone, close any other programs, turn your computer off, restart it, and run your antivirus / anti spyware programs. Learn what genuine warning messages from your antivirus program look like.

All of the above may sound rather horribly daunting, but with a little common sense and by adopting good practices, you can ensure that you are seldom bothered by these pathetic nuisances.

Happy and safe computing!

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