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General => The Shed => Topic started by: Palefire on November 25, 2003, 10:34:55
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Just want to warn everyone - watch out for the Trojan Horse virus "belt.exe" - nasty little b****rd that gets right into your system and causes allsorts of unwanted stuff when you log on. I believe it's a type of spyware. Not been on for a while because I've been trying to get rid.
Love, Palefire
xxx
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Hi palefire :)thanks for the advance warning .now how does this show itself would you explain to me please ,because there is something amiss here with me puter :) is it possible that it stops you getting any pages up because for the last few days i have had more aggro than enough >:(i have emailed bt but all i ever get is page unavailable its driving me slowly mad i do not know a lot about puters i have only had mine a short time still a newbie :D what i do know is i am paying for a service i cannot` get .any help or advice would be much appriccated?.doyou know if bt broadband is any good customer service wise
thanks a bunch :D cheers Rosebud xx
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Rosebud if you haven't got one you really need to get a virus checker installed!! :o My last computer finally expired after catching a nasty virus, it was never the same after that. :( (and I lost loads of stuff) I now have a checker that keeps me up to date and cleans up any nasties that may slip through. Worth every penny to stop me beloved getting sick! :) Dottie P.
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PS! forgot to add I am on broadband and love it! The speed the freedom, the addiction to being online..........marvelous!
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Yup, I second that Doris. Finally got Norton anti-virus up and running after a string of virus attacks!
p.s. Live in the darn sticks and can't get broadband. You have no idea how much this p*sses my hubby off! :-/
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I got McAffee, just download it off the net, their spamcheckers good too!
Where would i be without broadband..probably downstairs talking to my other half.maybe just as well you don't have it EJ, many a marriage may break down over the years!! hehehehe DP
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Hi Ladies thank you for advice.I do have a firewall is that the same thing? welli shall have to get on and have broadband sorted out after hearing it is good :D
i shall do that tomorrow i love sitting up in my den on my own ::)so i shall be here more often ;D
cheers girls Rosebud
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(color=deadcleverlike)Yo Rosebud
have a look at these
http://www.symantec.co.uk
and
http://www.spellsoftware.com
that could be a .co.uk so
http://www.spellsoftware.co.uk
just in case like
also go to the beebs news page
click on "Technology" then type
symantec into the search box and there is some real good stuff on there about symantec... who are the peeeps that make Norton Anti
Virus.
Also any peeps thinking of getting a new puter? This Thursday at Aldi.. there iz one realy good deal going down, £849.00 and it is awesum, be early though cuz these beauties go real fast, if I had the money.. Id be camppd outside right now..
hope this helps
oZzY %)[/coolmahn]
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Hi OZ thanks a bunch for the info will track that down today :D :D speak later in a rush going crimbo shopping
bye now Rosebud :) ;) :D ;D
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Hi Palefire - been there, done that, and the *fatherless children* (edit) ooops, have I got a word past the obscenity checker?(/edit) don't even give you a T-shirt!!! I'm sorry to hear of the problem - it's infuriating what these people assume they have the right to do.
Anyway - a security suggestion for all of us. No ONE product keeps EVERYTHING out!!! And I'd appreciate any additions/corrections to what follows.
You need to protect your computer from four unauthorised sources - and they attack using different mechanisms. The problem is that most commercial products cover two or even three of these sources of aggravation - but the other gaps need to be filled as well.
I am mean to the nth degree - so all the suggestions I've made of actual programmes have freeware versions, which I use. Others among us will have better and more powerful suggestions to make - all I can say is that these are free, and have kept me free of problems for a couple of years. Oh, and I'd like to know of any better freebies, please!
- Keep viruses out, with a good anti-virus programme - AND UPDATE IT REGULARLY; I update mine and scan all files every week, at most every two weeks, using AVG (downloadable from http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php), and no problems so far.
- Track down and remove spyware - mainly bits of programming and cookies which you've downloaded unknown to you; they're busy passing information to advertisers and spammers. I use Spybot (downloadable from http://www.safer-networking.org/) about once a week, and any time my computer appears to slow down unusually (updates less regular - I check every couple of months); Adaware (downloadable from http://www.lavasoftusa.com/) is another freeware offering, but not so good.
- Keep other intruders, such as hackers out; use a firewall, such as ZoneAlarm (downloadable from http://www.zonelabs.com/)
- The fourth area of aggravation is spam-mail - I had over 90 spams today, to 4 e-mails I actually wanted; to filter and remove spam from my mail-box without having to download it, I use Mailwasher (downloadable from http://www.mailwasher.net/).
If you haven't got one or more of the four "gates" covered . . . Nuff said!!!
All best - Gavin
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Gavin, Do you know of any freebies that keep those darn pop ups away???? Drive me nuts! >:(
Will give a couple of the sites a go tho, thanks for the info.we love freeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!! ( have to say that if I belived everything that the spam messages tell me, I would be in a curiosity museum for having very large male parts,and be high on some drug or another, only available via the web!! Hmmmm maybe there is a whole new career to be had here :o)
DP
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I too learned the hard way....I'm quite new to computers but in August last.....my puter was put out of action for 2.....yes 2 weeks!!....cos of the blaster worm.....nearly went beserk when I was cut off from the friends I'd made in another group.....(made me realise how addicted I'd become)...I've now got Norton Anti-virus and a Firewall and have eventually got into the habit of checking for updates as someone else said....every week.....it's essential.....I don't however have broadband......and it's so slow without.....H.P.
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Rosebud, if your ISP is Virgin then you have an immediate explanation of your troubles. I`ve been having the same trouble for several weeks - ever since they were hit by MsBlast virus. However, they have now produced an upgrade for a new telephone link, which you can find by using the Service Announcements on Virgin Home Page, and after the upgrade everything works fine (touch wood).
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Still on techno probs - anyone else dowloaded OE6 - to then find that Auntie's nephews and nieces are operating the system and censoring your incoming mail? Spam in reverse.. :(
It's been informing me, in a particularly high-handed manner, I felt, that it had "removed the following unsafe attachments"...
Admittedly, some of the jokes I get sent are a bit puerile & I didn't bother too much at first, but when it refused me access to a Word Doc. I was waiting for to do some work on, enough was enough..
Been battling through to no avail, but have just made contact with a computer whizz kid, who's guided me through it , so if anyone else comes across this prob. & needs help, I've saved the instructions. - Lishka
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Whatever`s OE6 Lishka?
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It's Outlook Express 6. And that 'unsafe' attachment message is very annoying.
see link for how to disable it...just be careful what you open!!
http://www.jmu.edu/computing/security/info/outlookav.shtml
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I am just sooooo relieved to read that others have been having the same problems as I've had for weeks now with OE ???...had no idea what was wrong....assumed I'd done something and mucked my settings up somehow....thanks for the link and will try to sort if out as soon as I can......H.P.
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rdak, wished I'd known before that we have a techno whizz-kid on the Forum - took me ages before I could contact my contact ??? to get the info.
I think that that particular problem is now sorted, but as I mucked around yesterday reducing 'security' and 'privacy' settings to lowest to see if that would get rid of the darned thing & let attachments through, I'm probably, as I type, having Unprotected Discourse ;D - at my age, too ::) ... now what sort of example is that to set the grandchildren???
Lishka
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Hi - for Doris-Pinks and others for whom pop-ups are a pain. Ummmmm - what pop-ups? ;D ;D ;D
Just a bit cheeky on my part - but I use the opera browser, which is so easy to set up to eliminate popups when you don't want them, easy to accept pop-ups when you do want them. It is also MUCH faster than Internet Explorer.
Nothing would persuade me to go back to IE, or Outlook Express!!!!
All best - Gavin
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPS! forgot to mention there's a freeware download available from http://www.opera.com/ !!!! Have fun - it works a little differently from IE, but is so much easier once you get used to it.
:) :) :) :) :)
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Hello everyone, back again and it's nice to see some advice being handed around.
There are many myths and legends going round about this one already. AVG calls it "stubby a"; not sure about others. The resident shield of AVG keeps finding it in a certain location, but when I do a specific scan of that location with AVG scanner, it says there is nothing there. Someone sent me a Trojan-specific stinger to run and it couldn't find it, either. SOoooooo, either the resident shield is having a wobbly, or the virus is buried so deep that nothing will get it out. The one good thing it has led to , though is me getting rid of a poo-load of rubbish off my hard drive. Have a look in your temporary internet file directory one day and be amazed at the amount of rubbish in there. I recommend looking at each one and where it came from. If it's a site you have never visited, or haven't visited in a long time, then delete the cookie. (Quick disclaimer here - never delete anything from a system file, unless you are 100% confident in what you are doing!)
I have turned all my internet settings up as high as possible without compromising site such as this, my blocked senders list is going to rival the bible in content soon and I have a lot of sites on my restricted list.
I, too had the problem with OE not letting me open my own attachments sent from work, a source I knew to be virus free. Very frustrating when the deadline is the next morning!
I recommend running a spyware scanner once a week, going to security update pages for your software once a week, and running the update manager on your antivirus software as often as you log on. Remember, an antivirus is only good until it fails you!
Love, Palefire
xxx
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thanks for that spyware link Gavin- I downloaded it and found a huge amount of spyware which I have now removed.
I just want to re-iterate how important a firewall is , especially if you have broadband. I use Zonealarm.
It is also very important to disable Messenger in Windows XP and 2000. This isn't Messenger that let's you chat with people- it's an internal part of Windows that 99% of people don't need but it's a security risk. Here's how to disable it:
http://www.auburn.edu/oit/security/messengerService.html
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For pop-ups, I'd recommend the google toolbar (go to www.toolbar.google.com)
Can use it to block pop-ups, but also one click to unblock if you need to see them (sometimes sites use pop-ups for competitions etc). Also counts how many are blocked - very amusing!
Also a very quick way of searching!
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Great Big THANK YOUs and GOLD STARS to everyone who's contributed to this thread - with coconuts also to Palefire who started this thread and Gavin who gave the Spybot link.
It's so nice to know that when things go wrong with my PC (as well as in my garden ;)) a loud shout here will produce a good result.
And Spybot found 53 thingys :o :o :o - all gone now, tho 8) ;D - Lishka
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Yep - Spybot found loads of cookies for adware and spyware that I hadn't seen in my directories - so they've gone. Just watch out with spybot that you don't accidentally immunise cookies or applications that you might want. I know it gives you an option to retrieve them, but it showed up a windows update application on mine that I didn't want it to remove, so I have to keep unchecking it. Other than that - it's a nifty little programme.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread - gonna go for the full monty format of the hard drive next week :-[. Just burning all the kosher files I want to disc beforehand. Wish me luck, everyone ;)! In the meantime, feel free to add warnings, advice etc to this.
Love, Palefire
xxx
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Finally back ;D ;D ;D. Having lost all software and the subsequent updates via the internet because of formatting the hard drive :-/, we reloaded the software that came with the computer. There was no antivirus to check if the little blighter had gone (it had been a free thing from the net), so we decided to reconnect to the net and have the computer remotely scanned by Symantec (Norton's parent company). Got back on the net with the help of our ISP, but it was late, so we logged off and went to bed.
IN THAT SPLIT SECOND, W32Blaster got us >:( :( :-/. Every time we logged on after that, a countdown appeared, saying "The Remote Procedure Call has unexpectedly terminated. Windows will now shut down. This shutdown was initiated by NT/AUTHORITY" and a minutes countdown appeared >:(. Ended up having to reconfigure all our internet settings to highest, make sure the firewall was enabled and go to http://www.symantec.com to download a free virus killer - they have a whole list by the way ;).
So, we are now running a 15 day trial from that site - Norton Internet Security - and it seems to be doing the trick so far. As for the late nights waiting for extensive downloads from Microsoft to recover all the updates we had lost - don't think I'll forget that lesson in a hurry :-/.
Consequently, we're off to buy the full monty version next week.
Upshot of this post?
Buy a computer and forget about anything else until you have an antivirus in place. It is the most disruptive, annoying, infuriating, events regarding the pc that I have ever had to deal with.
A peaceful and virus free Christmas to you all, :-*
Love, Palefire
xxx
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Hi Palefire - what a horrendous experience; I feel for you! But good to hear you're getting it sorted
All best - Gavin
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Thanks, Gavin. Have now got antivirus on the computer and I have managed to load, configure and relax! :)
The only thing is, having had a virus, albeit not a computer killing thing in the end, I am really paranoid about anything that is not something I have asked for, or anything that doesn't immediately go right! Anyhow, I can't live on pins, I just hope that someone reading this who is having problems with pop ups and unwanted emails (especially if they have Kazaa on their system) will be able to learn from my experience before they end up going through it too. :)
Love, Palefire
xxx
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Palefire............oh how I wish I had read this thread a week ago..........
.....just built myself a new system last tuesday........put it all together........most pleased with myself.......it was all working.....went on the net........did some browsing.........then I started getting the RPC problem...........oh what a pain.
.....60 seconds is barely enough to do what you need to do.......took me a while, but realised it was a virus......and finally got rid of it yesterday.....and when I was explaining it all to EJ, she mentioned this post.........
.....I shall have to read more ....oh well,
.....anyway.......it is OK now......thank goodness...
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My sympathies, Ava Banana. That's why I posted this, in the hope that, if anyone had a friend talking about the same kind of symptoms, they would be able to let them know what was going on and possible ways of eradicating the problem.
Glad you got rid,
Love, Palefire
xxx