# virus

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virus/231105
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 25, 2004, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virus/231105 "2004-02-25T15:05:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![brido](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/71c47a/32.png) [@brido](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brido)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2004, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virus/231105/1 "2004-02-25T15:05:50Z")

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I think my laptop’s got a virus. When I try to check my emails on yahoo or hotmail, the browser won’t let me access the page. I’ve run a virus checker which didn’t come up with anything, and I know there’s nothing wrong with the websites, because I’ve accessed them on different computers since. Something similiar happened before, when I couldn’t access search engines, but I fixed that by removing text from windows/hosts. Anyone got any ideas what’s wrong with me?

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### Author: ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2004, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virus/231105/2 "2004-02-25T17:05:28Z")

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> [@brido](#):
>
> I think my laptop’s got a virus. When I try to check my emails on yahoo or hotmail, the browser won’t let me access the page. I’ve run a virus checker which didn’t come up with anything, and I know there’s nothing wrong with the websites, because I’ve accessed them on different computers since. Something similiar happened before, when I couldn’t access search engines, but I fixed that by removing text from windows/hosts. Anyone got any ideas what’s wrong with me?

Instead of using an onboard virus scanner , try doing the virus scan online

> **[HouseCall – Free Online Security Scan](https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/forHome/products/housecall.html)**
>
> Detect and fix viruses, worms, spyware, and other malicious threats for free.

Some virus are designed to elude detectors. Should that fail , then do the spybot -ad-aware thing to see if its mal ware.

Declan

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### Author: ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2004, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virus/231105/3 "2004-02-25T19:26:05Z")

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It’s most likely spyware, not a virus. They are much more likely to screw with your hosts file. Download and run Ad-Aware or Spybot.