Subscribed with Norton 360. Detected a google browser re-direct this afternoon and decided to try out the live chat service I was paying for. It did not go as planned.
(note- some chat typos fixed)
I was never transferred - I was dropped. Did more searching using non-Google engine and found Norton Power Eraser (free!) app. Indentified, scrubbed and removed redirects in 5 minutes.
This is so timely. I’m in the process of looking at virus protection software. I’d been using Zone Alarm and am now trialing Kaspersky. Was going to try Norton, but not now.
Yes, timely. I had a (false) malware scare a year ago and in a fit of paranoia signed up for Norton. Now I have 30 days left.
I am thinking of plunking for avast! anti viral due to its low on-access scan speeds and decent protection. I’ll pair it with Comodo Firewall after a couple of weeks. Comodo has a traffic indicator, as does Zonealarm. Zonealarm’s used to be set off by BOINC: I don’t know if that’s still the case. Comodo received a significantly higher rating on PC World’s tests (conducted by matousec.com), FWIW: 95% vs. 11% for Zonealarm Free and 71% for Zonealarm Pro.
Balance has it right, you’re tossing money down a hole.
There is no such thing as a program that will remove and/or prevent all malware. It just doesn’t exist. It likely never will. Ever.
In all my years of malware fighting I have yet to come across a system I needed to wipe (although many times that would have been the faster solution).
Norton, McAfee, and the like only exist to make money. If I had a dollar for every system I cleaned with one of them already installed I’d be rich. Avast is cool but very annoying. AVG free was cool, but is now more of an annoyance than a benefit.
Your re-direct could have been a result of a BHO (unlikely based on your knowledge), a host file change, or a root kit (let’s hope it’s not that). A simple malware sweep with 5 or 6 tools may clean it without any real inconvenience.
The only antivirus software I’ve ever been happy with is Microsoft Security Essentials. It’s quiet and unobtrusive and doesn’t grind my PC to a halt randomly.
For ease of communication, it’s a fairly common practice for Indians working in call centers and on help desks to adopt a typical American name like “Melroy Coelho.”
AVG still has sharper teeth but they have been getting annoying lately with the constant bombardments to buy and constant popups about browser memory loads.
MSE, backed up by an occasional scan with malwarebytes is an excellent combination.
Has MBAM ever found anything on your system? People and sites whose opinions I respect often praise it, but I find it pretty useless (although I do keep the definitions up to date every week or so). I’d say that 97% of the times I’ve done a complete scan with MBAM, it has resulted with nothing found. I remember once being shocked when running it at work and it caught something.
My situation now is different than before when I would have used it more often. I came across a lifetime subscription for Super AntiSpyware for $20 I think and I jumped at it, since it found tracking cookies, rootkits, homepage redirects etc. and was able to schedule updates and scans. I know it’s overkill, but mine updates at least every 8 hours, and scans/removes/quarantines nightly. The other anti-malware I run pretty much don’t have a chance at finding a thing. Those being Spybot, Glary Utilities, Advanced System Care, Malwarebytes, and IObit malware. I usually only let the Glary, and ASC actually scan, then update the Spybot and MBAM. I run the rest if it looks like I picked something up, and in really bad scenarios (which really never happen anymore due to Spybot’s immunization and PC Tools firewall) I’ll run Combofix, Hijack This or GMER.
When the mood strikes, maybe once every other week or so, I do a full system clean. That includes malware scans, registry clean up, CCleaner, and defrag/optimization (don’t have an SSD yet). All of this is quite thorough, multi-tasks well, and takes maybe half an hour or so while I’m watching TV. My system is often so sparkly clean that I make a restore point then.
Most days I like to kill malware and watch cat videos, and I often run out of cat videos to watch…
Every few months or so there’s a sale on Kaspersky with up to five licenses sometimes on Newegg and maybe elsewhere. It’s free if you can jump through the rebate hoops. I’m assuming it’s a one year deal, but they offer the deal so often it would be a no-brainer AFAIC to get it, assuming the rebates go through without a hitch. Slickdeals.net always seems to find when this deal is going on. I guess even if you did pay for it, it wouldn’t be that bad. Kaspersky is a very highly renowned anti-vir program, up there with NOD-32 and the like. Both of which have free components BTW.
How is Avast annoying? We’ve been using AVG for a few years and also were using Online Armor for firewall; those ran into conflicts. Online Armor simply quit working when the year was up, vs. continuing but not updating any more, and it was preventing me from updating AVG, so we just turned on Windows firewall (better than nothing). My son had Avast pre-installed on his new laptop and it seemed to be behaving, so we ponied up for that on his laptop. He hasn’t complained.
I bought a Kaspersky license when I got my new computer a year or so ago; when it started yapping at me that I had to renew, I looked into the scan reports and found that in an entire year, it had not detected nor removed a single thing, so I let it lapse.
This is the exact problem I am having with my computer. It doesn’t redirect every time, often I can hit the back button and try again to get to the right site, but Microsoft Security Essentials never finds anything. Do you think trying the Norton Power Eraser would work for me, too?
Summer 2011, our computer had something. AVG turned up and quarantined a few files every day, but they kept coming back. So I tried Malwarebytes - which said nothing.
In fairness, I posted to forum at the Malwarebytes site and one of their folks helped me sort the problem out: some kind of rootkit, which was fortunately limited to my daughter’s user (non-admin user).
I advise against trying Norton anything. I regard Norton software as practically malware itself–worse, it’s malware that scams you out of money before it’s installed.