Many years ago (late 90s to around 2010) I was in the business of providing computer support for individual consumers and small businesses. A big part of that was cleaning up various virus and other malware infections, and I had a toolkit of preferred tools that included AVG, Malware Bytes, Spybot, AdAware, and Process Explorer. Then I made a significant career change and got out of the PC support industry.
Fast forward to now. My elderly mother who lives in an assisted living facility about 1000 miles away from me is having a persistent pop-up message that her computer is infected with some virus. She knows better than to click on the link offering to remove the virus for her, but doesn’t know what to do to fix the problem herself, and is unwilling to pay for anyone that she doesn’t know to come fix it for her. Therefore, I will be making the trip down to see her, fix her computer, and take care of a few other things that need to be dealt with while I’m there.
The last time I downloaded the above listed tools was circa 2010. Are those still being updated and considered viable? Any others that have been developed in the intervening 14 years that I should be looking at to update my kit? Any and all recommendations regarding the current best tools and practices will be greatly appreciated.
You didn’t specify machine type slash OS. Assuming this is a relatively recent flavor of Windows, the Defender suite built in by default is as good as anything you can pay for at the broad consumer level. Start with that.
I’ve been using BitDefender for a couple of years. It has very good ratings on all the review sites I looked at, and there’s a free version (although their web site design doesn’t make it easy to find). When my wife’s computer ran into a hijacking site, I tested several antivirus tools and BitDefender was the only one that blocked access to the site.
Sorry about the PC build info omission. It’s an older PC running windows, but I’m not sure which version. I’m assuming it’s at least Windows 7. But could be anything between that and Windows 11 depending on what the hardware would actually support.
The pop-up message is likely just a Chrome notification. Websites like to sneak in the notifications permissions, and then the notifications are scareware adds. We get several of these a month.
For Windows 10+ I don’t bother with background anti-malware aside from built-in Defender. If there’s a nasty virus you can boot to safe mode, enable Defender, uninstall programs that play nice with the registry via settings, and run an on-demand scan. Malwarebytes is still a good alternative scan. Rootkits I’m not sure. TDSSKiller used to be the best tool, but those are rare anyways.
For prevention Defender won’t help with sophisticated phishing which is probably the no.1 concern for an elderly user. SmartScreen is probably as good as third party solutions will be for the foreseeable future, if she uses the Edge browser. Bitlocker and OneDrive help with ransomware. If you lean into the Microsoft security economy, and it’s all built-in now, coverage is pretty good.
Glad to hear the built-in Microsoft Defender is so highly regarded. I’ll start with that. I’ve downloaded both the 32-bit and 64-bit boot device creator utilities just in case they end up being called for and she isn’t running a new enough version of Windows.
Also surprised that each of the products I listed above are still available and being updated. Fresh downloads are also now in hand. Bitdefender has likewise been added to the kit. If I have the time, I’ll probably give each of them a chance to see any of them find something missed by the others before I declare her well and truly squeaky clean. And will continue to stress the importance of identifying and not responding to anything that in any way resembles a phishing attempt. Thanks all!
Good to know about Spybot. Sounds like running it along with BitDefender would be redundant. And I was never a big fan of Kaspersky mainly due to its Russian roots.
I’ll definitely check that if she’s using Chrome, but I really don’t think she is. Most likely Edge, but she’s possibly still using whatever version of Internet Explorer came installed on the computer. She’s really not been one to keep up with technology for quite a few years now. Heck, she still uses a landline and keeps an old Galaxy flip phone around from when she used to be able to travel that she only uses in case of a power outage or if her main phone goes on the fritz. She’s needed to be upgraded for a while now, but is unwilling to learn how to use any new software or front-end interfaces. Which just adds to the difficulty of getting her support when she needs it. But, what’s a guy to do?!?
My aged MIL died a couple years ago. Welded to Win7 & IE since anything else would’ve blown what was left of her mind. My pain but it was worth it for her comfort.
Fortunately she only lived across town, not 1000 mi away like your Mom. But something I did on one visit was to install a remote control app so I could (with her knowledge and her sitting there to give permission) attach to her login session and fix crap remotely.
Once installed it turned out I only needed it maybe twice. Like the car that only makes noise when you drive it, never when you bring it in, the mere presence of the app seemed to have tamed some of her machine’s demons.
At the time, ~2018, TeamViewer was free for personal use and was the consensus favorite here. I don’t know what the best answer is today. It is almost certainly not the MS built-in remote assistance app that seems to struggle when used between different versions of Windows.
While you’re there, install a remote access program so you can handle things without having to travel. I like Remote Utilities. It’s free, full-featured, and easy to use.
A lot of people like TeamViewer, which I used for many years until they randomly (and incorrectly) decided I was using it for business purposes and insisted, without any appeal process, that I pay the full business price. That’s when I switched to Remote Utilities.
I agree about Defender being great. If you know you have a virus/malware right now, Bleeping Computer is probably your best resource. It’s a forum of IT professionals who volunteer their time to help out anyone experiencing an infection. Both their knowledge and tools are top notch: