I've had an absolute nightmare of a week. My laptop got infected by a virus at the weekend. I thought I was protected by my AVG Security Software and that it had dealt with it. I didn't switch my computer on again until Monday afternoon to find that all my sites were infected and then discovered all my clients website were infected too. The virus is such that it infiltrates your ftp software steals all your logins and send them off to some remote server which that infects any page with default/index/home in the file name, althought a few other pages were also infected.

 

So I spent a whole day trying to remove whatever was on my system using Mircosoft Malicious Software Removal Tool / Windows Defender / Malwarebytes Anti Malware.

 

Think I got rid of it, but decided to wipe my computer compeletetly and reboot from the restore/recovery disc I made when I first got the laptop - all was going smoothly and it was as if I'd just bought the computer again. Once in, I installed a free version of AVG [i know, crap, but I had the installer to hand] - I just wanted to be able to go online and sort out all my client websites - so installed my FTP again got the original files from my backup drive and proceeded to go through every single site I've ever built and change the ftp password first then over write the infected files - this took up all on Tuesday and Wednesday.

 

Checked all sites this morning and a few were infected again - I have no idea why, so I had to change the passwords again and re-upload files - all seem to be fine now, but I'm keeping an eye on them.

 

So then someone recommend Kaspersky - so I went to their website to have a look - seems good, so I bought the latest version - Internet Security 2010 - installed it and ever since my computer keeps crashing. I tried to doa full system scan with it and my entire pc freezes and I have to power down using the poer button. If I'm running more than one program at a time, it can't deal with it. I didn't have this problem when I was running the free avg software. Oh and by the way I compeltely uninstalled that before installing Kaspersky in case anyone asks.

 

I went online to look for support at the kaspersky site and it's taken over an hour to figure out how to get a customer ID to actually email them - when I everntually did that and got a confirmation email, I'm told that eta of a response if after 4pm tomorrow! I want to deal with this now. I relly don't like this software at all, don't like their site, don't like their forum - it's all so overly complicated, convoluted and confusing.

 

I just want something to protect my pc from virus attacks! Software I've used before

 

Norton - took over my pc and it was like having parental control swithced on - hated it

ZoneAlarm - same sort of freezing issues as Kaspersky and it seemed to have compatibility issues with all my sotware

AVG - perfect until now - wouldn't trust it again after the week I've had

 

Any recomendations?????

apologies for the spelling mistakes, but i'm tired/exhausted/stressed/fed up etec etc etc

kaspersky (sp?) is pretty good. but anti-virus software is only as good as it's updates

I've never had any problems with AVG but there are viruses coming out every day so it's hard for all anti virus software to keep up with them. Make sure you don't have random passwords for your FTP logins, don't store them on your computer too.

 

We had a problem in the office I'm working in with someone hacking in to some of the website and putting an Iframe on sites. We got rid of it pretty quickly but had to reset all FTP passwords.

 

I've had a few problems with viruses on my computer but mainly because I download a lot of crap which is always a risk but AVG always sniffed out any viruses and got rid of them straight away so can't complain about it, yet

Absolute nightmare. The people that create these virus's should be made to compensate the victims for the costs incurred!!!

 

re: the problem. What FTP program are you using? and windows xp?

 

I suppose to be absolutely safe you need to change the ftp password after uploading and change it again for the duration of your ftp session. But what a complete faff..

 

Keep us updated as I too use AVG (paid version).

Well definitely not liking Kaspersky and glad they have a money back guarantee

 

Think I'm going to try zonealarm again as I don't trust AVG at all anymore - I was fullly up to date as I did a scan every morning before starting work and alsways checked for update at the same time. Beware all AVG users - it could happen to you.

 

I just want something that is simple to use.

 

Trying to see if I can configure cuteFTP to not store the passwords, so I have to type them in each time I want access which is a abit annoying as to save time I use the 'generated' password option when creating new ones rather than trying to come up with something - after dealing with 30 websites or more with no sleep it's hard to be creative and think of a password that get the green light [very secure password].

 

Any other suggestions for security software???

I'd love some recomendations!

Have a look at Avast!

 

Apparently its really good (I use it without problems) and according to reviews its not as power hungry as AVG so wont hit you in that area.

 

I'm not that pc savvy to give a decent review on it but a quick google should come up with the readies. Plus the fact its free, so if you don't like it, no worries.

 

Hope that helps a bit.

I did look into that one and didn't like the look of it - after an extensive chat with an old work colleague who uses ZoneAlarm I opted to go for ZoneAlarm Extreme. I've requested a refund for the Kaspersky software and as with everything Kaspersky it was a convoluted nightmare. Uninstalled it now and installed the 15 day free trial of ZoneAlarm Extreme - so far so good - I like it's simplicity and the info it gives out - e.g just before restarting it explained that for the first few hours of running my computer might run a little slower than normal and this is to be expected - to me that makes it all the more user friendly as I know what to expect. Fingers crossed it caries on being trouble free and then I'll purchase the software and make it legit in 15 days time.

I've been using ESET NOD32 Smart security - http://www.eset.com/ - and it's the best I've used so far having been through Norton (10 years ago!), Kaspersky, AVG.

 

It's always worth checking how different AV software compares - http://www.av-comparatives.org/comparativesreviews/main-tests

On my laptop I'm using AVG, which is okay, but nothing special.

 

On my computer I'm using Zone Alarm. By far the best software out there at the moment in my opinion

I would recommend BitDefender.

 

So Easy to use, and looks very nice in design, and has the best protection of all major AV software. Check this out >> http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

 

There are Videos for each products too, so watch them as well.

 

Thanks

no need for any more replies on this - I'm into day 2 of my trial of Zone Alarm Extreme and very happy with it so far. So will probably buy the full version once the trial has finished.

Eset smart security is (arguably) the best anti-virus on the market.

 

http://www.eset.com/products/compare-NOD32-vs-competition.php

Avast and AVG are good free anti-virus programs, they should be suitable for your average user. I personally use McAfee 8.5i, backed up with SpyBot (and Tea Timer continually running), with Windows Defender active as well.

 

But truly, the best defence is common sense. Hey, that was quite catchy!