The Computer Doctor of Richmond

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.