Internet Safety: How do I keep my computer safe on the internet?

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Hi Leo, Steve here from the acres, and I have a question conserning spy ware and such. I found with a spy ware scanner about 101 spy ware things most were update things and such from microsoft and other software that seems to be important. It ( the spy catcher ) gave no other info on weather it would hurt or hinder the proformance of my machine or such. How do I find out other than the obivious of finding out weather to take them out or not? thanks for the help if possible, Steve @ Kens corgi acres

Hi Steve,

You didn't mention which tool you were running - if it happens to be spybot (the one I run), it does a very nice job of providing additional information about each item it's flagged. I assume some of the other tools may have something similar, but I can't say for certain. Your question is definitely a common concern ... sort of a "now what?" after you get those 101 flags :-).

Most of what typically gets reported are tracking cookies. An *over* simplification (and my opinion) is that most tracking cookies are a) safe, and b) also quite safe to delete. Afterwards you may need to log into a site that normally remembers you, but that's typically about as inconvenient as it gets. Ditto for things like media player, real player and so on. I regularly run spybot, scan the results, and if there's nothing obvious to me, I go ahead and have the tool cleanup / delete everything it finds. Again, this is with the caveat that I'm using spybot search & destroy, and am comfortable with what it's found.

Leo

In addition, you also need to install bug fixes for the software on your computer. Doing it for all the software is most likely not practical, but certainly it should be done for Windows and MS Office.
At the moment the procedure for applying bug fixes (aka patches) differs for just about every software program. :-(

Another suggestion is to avoid Internet Explorer, Outlook and Outlook Express. If you are very familiar with computers, these programs can be configured for reasonable safety in their latest versions. However, if you are not familiar with computers or are using older versions, they are each an accident waiting to happen.

Mozilla is a free replacement for IE and has the advantage of not supporting ActiveX (a potentially dangerous technology). Mozilla also comes with an email program that is a free replacement for Outlook Express.

Dear Leo,

I used two spy scanner & trojan remover. But both can't remove some of the trojans e.g. win32:Trojan-gen.{VC}. They even could not be quarantined!
Eliza

Yes, sometimes you need a special removal tool. I would visit the symantec site and search to see if there is a tool for the infections you have: http://ask-leo.com/d-symantecavc

Good luck!

Leo

Don't forget about trying to stop the problems in the first place.
i.e. security settings in internet options should be set up so only sites in your "trusted sites" list can download files and run script.
I set the "Active Scripting" setting to prompt for all other "internet" sites so I can decide whether to allow the site to run potentially dodgy script. It has to be said that this is a bit irritating though as sometimes you get lots of messages.
However, if you turn the scripting off completely a lot of sites don't work.

PS- I recommend Ad-Aware and Spybot.

Here's one that's leaving me scratching my head. I have a winxp system that Norton 2004 says is infected with the Korgo.L virus, so I hop out and get the specific removal tool for it. I run it, but it says the system is not infected with the virus. So I run Norton again...yep, you have the virus it says. Can't fix, can't quaranteen, can't delete. I see the file that is indicated, I have deleted it in safe mode with restore off but it keeps coming back. How do I get rid of the durn thing??

This is a situation where I immediately visit other virus manufacturer's websites and look for other tools or manual removal instructions. In this case I found a set up on Trend Micro's site that seems promising: http://ask-leo.com/d-korgol

Let me know of that helps.

hi leo hope you can help me i had a free scan it showed 415 infections 2malignant proscess it totaled items scaned where 43506 signature 10684 this is my first computer i dont know what to do? it runs great please help do i have to order it i cant right now thank you pat

Anti virus or Anti Spyware? In either case I'd let (or get) the tool that actually cleans things up for you after they report what they've found. Most do.

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