Quick Malware Removal

Today is the day for pet hates

I have just seen an advert on my very own Blog which says it can remove malware from my PC in minutes. I know from repairing computers that removing malware from a pc is a very involved process and cannot be done in 2 minutes. Hours more like. Compounded very often by the fact that the pc has been seriously messed up by the use of quick fixes. These do more harm than good.

Prevention is better than cure
Get a decent antivirus product. If it is free, it is not decent. It is a cut down product and hardly worth using up system resources for.
Dont think that you can use your computer on every website in the whole world. Many websites, even the best and most prominent in the world can be invaded by malicious code which can infect your computer in a drive-by fashion. Always be wary.
Dont say "yes" to everything when you download software.
Dont download willy nilly. The more you have running on your computer the slower it gets.
Avoid those exciting little toolbars, they use up valuable system resources as they busily chat away to their coders in the background. Read all the messages properly when installing software. Say NO to additional bits and pieces. Acrobat reader is one of those which does all this for example
Dont allow a program to automatically update. Always do it when YOU want to and not before. Automatic updaters are chatty little programs. If you are running loads, you will certainly notice a difference in the speed of your once pristine computer.
Just because it is free, doesnt mean it is good.

Registry cleaners are not the holy grail.
The registry is what runs the computer. Everything on your computer can be found as coding in the registry. Mess the registry up by deleting items or programs or so called orphan files can seriously mess up your computer. Avoid registry cleaners unless you know what you are doing.

If your computer is running slowly or is behaving erratically, it needs attention from an expert. Having a decent antivirus program will probably save you money by avoiding to have to pay for the expert. Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted is going to cost you a lot more money in the long run. Decent antivirus such as ESET Smart Security will be money very wisely and well spent. Contact PCBuilda if you need to discuss it without the jargon and we will help you through the mire.

Why you should pay for Antivirus

The quickest answer is that they are fully functioning products which protect you proactively. Free antivirus is simply not as good. Some of the functionality is turned off which means you are vulnerable.

You have paid between £300 and upwards to £1500 for your laptop, but having it infected with a virus is the quickest way to trash it. If you are unfortunate enough to be infected with Ransomeware, you have little option but to reinstall everything again. This costs time and money if you have to take it to an expect like us. Whereas we would love to help you regain control of your precious laptop and pc it is easier and more cost effective to actually buy a proper and tried and tested fully functional antivirus product which also does Antispam, Antispyware, Identify protection, Anti-theft tracking, and does it efficiently and quietly in the background. We only recommend and use ESET as our antivirus vendor as they are the only ones that have proved to us that we are safe. Most of the laptops which come to us as infected are actually protected by Norton or Mcafee or AVG which speaks volumes in my book. Norton or Mcafee are the antivirus products most often shipped with new laptops or computers but you dont have to stick with them. You will find ESET faster, and less intrusive than either of these as ESET have designed the product with speed in mind. ESET uses a different method to assess a file which means that even never before seen virus in the wild are eliminated before they get chance to hook into your system. Once your system is hooked, it is difficult to remove those little critters without expert help.

Some people think that there is a lot of scaremongering about virus infections through using the internet. Believe me it isnt scaremongering. An unprotected PC can get infected within 5 minutes. YES, thats right, 5 MINUTES. I have had it myself when building computers, before I have had chance to download the antivirus, I have been zapped, so I know how easy it is. The risk is very real and very difficult to avoid. Think Russian Roulette, it will get you eventually if you try enough times. Some viruses have mischievous intentions by making your system behave abnormally or erratically. Others have a much more insideous nature such as those which harvest your details. It is something you probably wont be aware of as if they published their presence you would do something to rid yourself of it. It suits them better to keep a low profile whilst they are up to their dastardly deeds.

How do you know you are infected:
There are many symptoms but amongst the most common are

• Strange toolbars showing up in your web browser
• Unable to boot your computer
• Blue Screen at bootup (sometimes a fake produced by a virus infection)
• Unexplained random rebooting
• Constant rebooting
• Unable to go onto the internet
• Loading inappropriate web pages when you access the internet
• Screen blocked by virus warnings
• Screen advising you that you are infected
• Screen advising you that the police are watching you
• Desktop screen goes blank
• Antivirus product will not start
• Unable to open programs
• Very slow booting or generally slow or unresponsive behaviour in use
• Hanging or crashing programs
• Access denied to your files and programs
• Webcam activating randomly
• Unseen virus activity such as harvesting your address book, or personal information, or keylogging your bank logon screen. (They can replicate what you have typed). 

Virus cleaning is £45 as it takes hours of scanning time and a lot of expertise.  Most antivirus products are less than that, so what are you waiting for? Give us a call 01244646010 and protect your information and your system with ESET. It is money well spent.

ESET have won VB100 awards every single year for the last 10 years as a top rated and highly effective product.

Do You Really Need An Antivirus Program

Messing up your computer is big business. There is a whole army of organisations out in the world wide web which are geared up to making the most of gaining access to your computer.

you may think I have got nothing of interest on here

But you do.  You have probably got your bank information, your personal documents, your passwords listed, your photos which give them your address, your date of birth, what you look like, your family, your extended family, where you go for holiday, even probably your shoe size. They can interrogate your cookies to see where you have been surfing the web and get a good indication of how good an opportunity you are.

Even a drive-by infection by visiting a website infected with malware (whether the website owner knows or not) is really really easy to do. Before you know it your computer is acting strangely, you have popups with dubious content in them, it slows down to a crawl, and worst case it wont boot at all. Most antivirus vendors will tell you that they have a big job trying to keep up with all the new viruses and threats to your computer DAILY. Most antivirus vendors have to produce updates to their virus scanning definitions HOURLY. This gives you an idea of the scale of the issue.

In answer to the title of the post is a resounding YES, and YES you do get what you pay for. Free antivirus programs have limited functionality and will protect you from the odd bit of malware or virus but they will not give you the sort of protection that you NEED if you use todays internet.

If you get an infection, you will not be able to sort it out yourself, you will have to call in a specialist like us. PCBuilda spends a lot of time curing sick computers of virus infections. So the money you have saved by not buying a proper antivirus solution is now spent on trying to get your computer back in good order. Its a no brainer. We only use ESET which is a world beater as most of our business comes from curing computers "protected" by the other big names. We can sort you out with a licence if you go to our website for home computers HERE, or if you are a business user check this page out for more information on ESET products.