Sometimes you get what you pay for (copyright Mark Weinstein @ http://prometheuscomic.wordpress.com/2007/10/ )

We have recently had a customer that had a friend help him out with some minor computers problems. This friend that is a tech guy for his company said, lets just save your data and wipe the computer and start over fresh and clean. While most of the time this is an extreme approach, but often does fix misc software issues. However, the friend bailed after that and didn’t load much of the needed software, and also messed up numerous important settings.
So the person that would become our customer, called his tech friend seeking additional help. However, the tech friend is now nowhere to be found. Thus we received a call asking for true professional assistance. We of course were able to get his computer repaired and completely back up and running after a reversing some of the damage or incomplete work that had been done. If we had been the first call and not the friend, we may have been able to get the computer repaired with less work.

And while we are on the subject, sometimes you get what you pay for when it comes to free software vs paid for software. A customer recently required viral cleaning assistance after her computer became infected with a dreaded rouge fake antivirus. We had helped her with a similar infection about a year before. At that time, we encouraged her to purchase and install Vipre antivirus. She politely declined and opted for the protection of a very popular free antivirus program. Perhaps if Vipre was protecting her, she may not have had this second infection. Moreover, $30 for Vipre may have saved her not only from needing our assistance, but the headaches and downtime associated with another infection.

Now the last thing we want to encourage is inaction or panic on the part of our readers and customers. We highly encourage you all to experiment with potential software, and if you think you might be able to repair something the go for it! We are here for you if you need us and in most cases there is nothing you can mess up that we can’t fix. But perhaps you may want to have give us a call before hand in case we have any advice for you. In both of these cases, our customers have learned a valuable lesson, sometimes free costs more!

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.

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.

McAfee and Facebook team up
Recently Facebook announced that in an effort to try and stem the tide of people getting infected while facebooking, they’ve teamed up with McAfee to offer free antivirus suite. While a great and innovative way to try and keep their users safe, it is far from a perfect solution.
Users wanting to take advantage of this deal will simply need to sign into their facebook account, click on McAfee page link and become a fan of McAfee. You will then be able to download and install it (after giving a credit card). For more info on the Mc-fbook deal click here.

You’ll receive a free 6 month subscription to their full security suite and a discount after the 6 months is up. However, this is not an end all be all solution and you must still exorcise caution while facebooking and tweeting. Phishing scams to steal your facebook account info is still very prominent. Moreover, social media like facebook are one of the most common ways to get infected with a fake antivirus like we’ve warned about before.

We also see many customers on a weekly basis that are “protected” (notice the “quote” thingy’s?) by McAfee, Norton and the rest of the big names. These customers say, “but i thought i was protected.” In the end all you can do is be smart, don’t click on links without being careful about what you’re doing. If you’re not sure, just don’t do it. Same goes with email. Safe surfing is key to keeping your computer clean. It is also very important to take steps to make sure your computer is updated with microsoft security updates and you have a good antivirus. Lately, with all the computers we see that have been infected while being under the “protection” of McAfee and others we just can’t qualify them as adequate. In fact we’ve found that the latest free Microsoft Security Essentials free antivirus is in many ways a better level of protection than many of the big name AV’s.

However, if you want the best AV we’ve found, then follow the bread crumbs to Vipre AV. Take a look at our post here to learn more. We have had tremendous success and so have all of our customers that have made the smart decision to protect themselves with Vipre antivirus.