The Computer Doctor of Richmond

Microsoft’s free antivirus, “Security Essentials”

Microsoft released their free antivirus, Security Essentials a few days ago.  And to make a long story short, it aint half bad!  It is a decent replacement for other free solutions or the option of simply going naked with not AV software at all.  It is relatively fast at scanning and has a small foot print (meaning it doesn’t require a lot of horse power like some other brand name AV’s).  It also does an ok job of finding infections when compared to other AV’s.

We here at TCDoR.com have started testing it to see how it stacks up against some of the big dogs like Norton, McAfee, Vipre and others.  However, our initial tests have been relatively positive as with much of the rest of the industry.  In fact techreview.com agreed and said it is quite good.

If you’re interested in trying it out, go to www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/ and download it.

Does this look familiar?

personal AV

If it does, then you or someone you know has likely been infected by a fake antivirus.  We have seen a huge surge in infections of these fake AV’s over the past few weeks.  We’ve posted about them before and they are still very nasty and constantly evolving.  These fake AV’s infect your computer many different ways, one of the most common being peer to peer programs like limewire.  However, once you’re infected they typically will try to get you to “register” their product in order to clean your computer of whatever viruses it says you have.  The problem is that it is the virus and those viruses it says you have, you don’t.  It simply wants to hold your computer hostage for ~$50.  But whatever you do, don’t pay!  You’ll likely have your credit card number stolen and used on other purchases.
These fake AV’s are known to cause all kinds of problems, starting with killing your real antivirus and then slowing your computer to a crawl and in many cases disabling the internet followed by computer death (failure to boot).  If you see a screen like the one above of one similar (remember, there are tons of different variations of these fake AV’s) call us right away.  The longer you wait the more damage it will usually do to your system.
Not only can we help clean your system, we can educate you and give you the tools so this hopefully won’t happen again.

This is a red alert:  We here at The Computer Doctor of Richmond have been seeing a large outbreak of numerous fony antivirus and antispyware programs that are actually the virus/spyware/trojan etc….   Some of these include Windefender 2008, Antispyware XP 2008, Pro Antivirus 2009, Spy protector, Security 2009, PC defender 2008, and on and on and on.  If it looks semi legit, yet you don’t remember installing it on your computer, it is likely fake.

In many cases it will pop up not long after booting to your desktop and you’ll be prompted that there are 1-bazillion threats, pay $50 for a registered software that can remove these threats.  DO NOT DO IT!!! Not only will it not remove the real threat, you will have just wasted money and put yourself at risk for possible identity theft and or credit card fraud.  We had one customer who did pay for one of the products above, and she believes that is how her credit card number was stolen.

These fake security programs do a good job of looking legit, but are actually a threat to your security themself.  In many cases they are not only spyware, they are a trojan and open the door to many other rouge programs.  Unfortunately many of the legit antivirus programs like norton don’t do a very good job of removing them.  They may be able to remove portions of the threat, but often leave behind corruptions in your opperating system.

If you experiance any of these, we can help.  We have a perfect record of removing these threats at our crazy low prices!

Below are a couple of screen shots of what some of them look like: