Virus Removal Helpful Hints

At some point or another most people may get a computer virus. While it’s not usually the end of your computer usage, it can be frustrating and not a pleasant experience. Here are a few helpful hints to get you back on the road to computer recovery.

Always keep a back up of your files by reating a rescue disc so that you will have a way of accessing your computer system with a clean and healthy boot. You can find these at no charge from various vendors and they only take a few moments to create and have on file.Computer Virus

There are utilities you can have on your system such as McAfee Stinger. This is offered by McAfee AVERT Labs and it runs in Windows to clean up various forms of malware that are common and may affect your system.

Microsoft also offers a free malicious software removal tool and acts as a removal service that takes out active malicious software on your computer. You can access this free program through Windows Updates, Automatic Updates or Microsoft Updates and simply use the link that is provided to download the program.

Symatec is an excellent company that has virus removal tools. Some include free virus removal tools that you can access at their site.

E-Secure Virus Removal Tools removes singular malware and is also available at no cost to the user.

The best thing to do is to obviously have anti-virus software installed on your computer from the very start. However, these vendors can help in case you do have malware and need to remove it safely and efficiently. The optimum idea is to be proactive and use all of the tools you can access to guard your system against malware and viruses but these may help you out in an emergency situation.

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How to Fix Spyware

Let’s say you are at home working on your laptop and you are opening your internet browser. You find that it is taking forever to load. You try opening your word processing document and that’s going just as slow. You are starting to wonder if your computer is going to freeze altogether. You finally get your web browser open and when you do it’s a nightmare navigating to a different page. So when this happens what is it that could be causing your computer to act like it’s running out of gas? The short and sometimes painful answer is spyware.

If you are not familiar with spyware you should know that it comes in a couple of different ways to your computer. The first way is it comes prepackaged. Computer companies will put a unnecessary advertising and programs from companies on your computer that they are contractually obligated to have. The other way to get spyware is by downloading things from the internet and visiting other websites that may not be of the highest quality.

The first thing you know is that they are generally harmless on their own. It’s what happens when you have loads of spyware on the same computer. Each piece of spyware uses your computers active memory. Your computer has a limited amount of active memory. Each spyware uses a little bit of your active memory and once there is too much it makes it harder for you to open new applications.

So what do you do about the spyware on your computer? Well many virus protection programs have spyware an adware removal portions but it may not come standard on all virus programs. This might be an add on that you have to purchase from their website. If this is the case then it is within your best interest to buy from there as opposed to a third party site. Third party sites may contain spyware that cannot be trusted by most computers. So while spyware can cause your computer a problem there is definitely ways to fix this problem.

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Freeware and ELUAs: How to Protect Yourself

End license user agreements, or EULA as many call them, are those boxes that pop up when you install software. They typically offer two choices at the bottom of several pages of legalese, “I Agree to These Terms” or “I Do Not Agree to These Terms.” In general, people tend to simply click Agree, without reading, simply to begin the installation of their software. Every iTunes update comes with one of these, so they are not just a product of software the user purchases in a store or through a web site.

Unfortunately for the unwitting consumer, software companies are using the complacence and apathy of the public as a means to get the user to agree to software he may not have bargained for. There are numerous cases of this, yet since the end license user agreement was legally signed with that click, there is little to no legal recourse for those who may find unwanted programs at best – and malicious spyware at worst – on their computers. One of the more famous cases of this problem was when Apple snuck their Safari IOS into an iTunes update. Legally they were in the clear since everyone did agree to the installation, but acts like this only undermine the consumers’ trust in the company.

The situation with Apple is not the typical way EULA abuse makes the headlines. Typically people who download software find themselves on the receiving end of malware, Trojan horses, and bots that corrupt their systems and crash their hard drives. Unfortunately for these folks, the law says they brought it on themselves.

Despite the fact that End license user agreements tend to be long and obtusely worded, the public needs to read and understand what they are agreeing to when they accept free software from an unknown source.

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