It started night before last. I was on internet explorer and suddenly it froze for a second or two. Next, I recieved a box that said something about an error and it asked me if I wanted to send a report. I clicked “Don’t Send”. Then, the whole screen turned blue and it said that I made a fatal error. It told me to hit alt+control+del to restart the computer. So, I restarted my computer. Ever since then, whenever I try to get on the internet through netscape, I’ve been having difficulty. It takes super slow to download pages. Also, the dial-up box pops up before I click on netscape or e, that’s unusual for my computer. Whenever I try to get into e, I can’t. When I click on the icon, it does nothing. However, twice out of many tries I was able to. The first time, it was kind of slow but not as slow as netscape. The second time I was able to get into e, I recieved a box that said “You have a computer PARASITE”. The box asked me if I wanted more info to click “yes”. I did, and then it froze and I got that blue screen again that I made a fatal error.
I’m not that computer saavy. What is a computer parasite? Is it the same thing as a virus? What should I do to solve this problem.
Thanks.
yup. sounds to me like some sort of worm or other insidious creature. If you have anti-viral software on your computer (such as Norton antivirus) make sure it is updated with the most current definitions, and do a full system scan.
Furthermore, if you can somehow get onto the internet, download either spybot or adaware. These programs are free, and work like a virus scanner, but hunt down and kill spyware. I hope I helped you out of your bind. I wish you the best of luck.
Here are a few useful links:
Antivirus
Norton Antiviurs–What I use: http://www.norton.com/
Anti-Spyware
Adaware: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
Spybot: http://www.safer-networking.org/
oh yeah…I sorta got side-tracked.
A virus is really any program specifically meant to annoy, wreak general havoc with one’s system, or even to disable it. What you have seems to be something that isn’t all that malevolent in the sense that it isn’t deleting files, but is still just being a general pain in the butt.
Just to be on the safe side, make sure you have good backups of all your most important and/or sensitive files removable disk.
Again, good luck.
Sounds like you either have some spyware running, or a worm.
My recommendations:
Download and install AVG antivirus (free edition) from www.grisoft.com, then run a full scan of your system.
Download and install SpyBot S&D from here:
http://download.com.com/3000-2144-10194058.html?tag=lst-0-1
Then get it to check your system
Go to windowsupdate.microsoft.com and download all of the relevant critical updates for your OS (it is pretty much automated - the web page applet will determine which patches you need)
On a general note, if you ever get a browser window popping up saying something like “Your system may be infected” or whatever, just close the window, or click Cancel. It’s all hooey, and clicking “Yes” might do all kinds of stuff - change your homepage, install spyware, or whatever.
The only thing that should be warning you about viruses is an antivirus program that you installed yourself (or came preinstalled). Anything else that does this is a sure sign of a con job. In the same way that your personal data is not being “broadcast over the internet”, and you are not “the 10,000,000th visitor to this website!” :rolleyes: