The Computer Doctor of Richmond

Check out our very own Chief of Computer Medicine’s interview with local NBC news 12’s Gray Hall.

see the full news article on NBC new 12’s site

“I want to thank Gray and NBC 12 for the opportunity to share vital information with the good people of Richmond. In addition to what was mentioned in the story and what Irony mentioned, it is also very important to make sure your windows security updates, adobe flash and acrobat reader and your java plug-in are up to date. These are critical weak points that need stay updated. ”

Thank you
Kevin Boynton
Chief of Computer Medicine
The Computer Doctor of Richmond

Be sure to tune into NBC 12 news at 6pm on Wednesday the 16th and see our very own Chief of Computer Medicine, Kevin Boynton talk about scare-ware infections.  He was interviewed for a news piece on fake anti-virus infections, scare-ware tactics and methods to try an protect yourself.

We have just built a new link for all the software we recommend on a regular basis. We will be updating this often as we discover new tools to help make your computer life easier and less stressful. You can find great links to the industry leading antivirus software Vipre and excellent data back up software, Mozy. Just hit the Software link at the top of this page to learn more. And as always, if you have questions, just hit us up with a quick email. We’re always happy to help!

Earlier this week the top google listing when you searched for “dancing with the starts 2010 line up” was a hostile site that would try and infect you with a fake antivirus.  We’ve of course talked about these nasty things before and service computers with them all the time.  This is just another prime example of how these infections get out into the wild.  It also goes to show you that the bad guys are very good at search engine optimization.

These fake anti virus (rogue infections as they are properly known) try to hold your computer hostage and scare you into buying protection when they tell you that your system is infected with numerous viruses.  Cleaning these virus infections are actually one of the most common type of services we are now performing at The Computer Doctor of Richmond.  We typically see about half a dozen per week.  They can infect your computer a multitude of ways.  For instance, you google something innocent like Dancing with the Stars and next thing you know you’re getting a box popping up saying you’re infected.

The best thing you can do for yourself is to realize that you MUST have good antvirus protection.  However, that is not always enough.  In fact, many of the computers we clean, the users had current protection.  They often have either Norton or McAfee.  However, we have found that neither of those do a very good job anymore.  If you’re looking for a good antivirus, we recommend Vipre.  However, we also recommend installing Web Of Trust.  WOT is one more layer of great protection that is free.  Read more about it here.

Bottom line, be careful with your googling and let us know if we can help.

Let’s face it, the internet is a wild, fun, remarkable and dangerous place. On one hand it is the most amazing tool ever created that can open doors for research and worlds that would never have been seen by billions of people. But like any tool, it can and is used for hostile reasons by evildoers everywhere. We have seen too many customers lately that have been infected by those nasty fake anti-viruses we are trying to help them keep it from happening again. The first step is to get an antivirus if you don’t already have one, or get rid of Norton or McAfee and get a good AV like Vipre. Keep reading below for step two.

We recently started examining a program called Web Of Trust (WOT for short). WOT is a web community program that “plugs into” your Internet browser. WOT installs into your Internet Explorer and/or Firefox and gives you guidance. It is kind of like a traffic light for cruising the information highway. Meaning when you google/yahoo/bing or whatever something, you get a little red, yellow or green light beside the links letting you know if you’re safe to cross the road or if you should run away.

WOT traffic lights

These are google sponsored links and you’ll notice several of them are not exactly on the up and up

These “traffic lights” are based on a community of millions of other WOT users that have already rated these links on a 4 distinct qualifications. These four qualities are trustworthiness, reliability of the vendor, child safety and privacy. Trustworthiness includes if the site has been known to be hostile or infectious. WOT uses a very sophisticated algorithm and gets data from the users on each link rated. It then averages many user ratings to create the WOT rating you see. You can create a WOT account if you’d like to start rating sites if you’d like to help give back while surfing.

WOT blocked site

So you’re thinking, “there is no way WOT has a rating for every web page out there in the world.” Well of course you are right. If WOT has not created a rating for a site, it gets a grey light, so proceed with caution. And then you may want to rate the site yourself. In fact, if you google Computer Doctor of Richmond you will see a grey light. Meaning we have not been bestowed with a WOT rating. After you’ve installed WOT, we’d appreciate it if you’d give us a good rating (we’re safe, trustworthy, help keep your private data safe, and very reliable!).

WOT unrated site, The computer doctor of richmond

Our site is currently unrated. Wont you help us get a rating?

After testing it on numerous computers in our office and having a handful of customers try it out, we are confident in our recommendation for all to use it. This is by no means a replacement for an antivirus or firewall. This is simply one more GREAT tool to put on your computer to help prevent infections before it even starts. Any tool that can “foreshadow” your risk before clicking on a link it worth putting on your computer, especially since it is free! WOT works very well with no adverse side affects or performance issues like some similar pay services or the ones that come with some anti-viruses.

So how do you get it? Go to their site at mywot.com and click on the free download button. Then simply go through the quick installation. This works on both Internet Explorer and Firefox (safari is in the works and chrome is just around the corner). It also works on both Mac and PC.

A few other things you can do to help keep yourself safe is make sure you popup blocker is turned on. If you use firefox, you can also install an additional plug in called adblock plus that will block 99.9% of annoying web based banner ads. This will help speed up your browsing and keep the garbage off your screen.

If you hover over a WOT light, you’ll see what it was rated the way it was. This is “safe” adult site.