I can't get permission....

[Ken Blake]

In the tests I've seen, the freebies do as good a job as the paid
stuff, and often better.

I recommend Avira or Avast as antivirus, and MalwareBytes and
SuperAntiSpyware as malware scanners. All are free for personal use.

All good recommendations. I agree. I would add two programs to your
list:

Microsoft Security Essentials (also free)

eSet NOD32 (not free, but the best of all anti-virus programs).

 

[Char Jackson]

All good recommendations. I agree. I would add two programs to your
list:

Microsoft Security Essentials (also free)

eSet NOD32 (not free, but the best of all anti-virus programs).

Yep, I like those as well.

 

[relic]

In the tests I've seen, the freebies do as good a job as the paid
stuff, and often better.

I recommend Avira or Avast as antivirus, and MalwareBytes and
SuperAntiSpyware as malware scanners. All are free for personal use.

Often, you get what you pay for. I've seen free AVs miss a lot over the
years. Same for Spybot, Adaware, etc... They haven't done that well in
several tests either. Example:
http://antivirus.about.com/od/antivirussoftwarereviews/a/freeav.htm

 

[Char Jackson]

Often, you get what you pay for.

Agreed, that's quite often the case, but that just makes this a very
sweet exception.

I've seen free AVs miss a lot over the years.

All AV's have hits and misses. Free stuff isn't immune, but it's
generally a lot better than many of the big names that come as free
trials on every PC.

Same for Spybot, Adaware, etc... They haven't done that well in
several tests either. Example:
http://antivirus.about.com/od/antivirussoftwarereviews/a/freeav.htm

Spybot and AdAware usage probably peaked in the 2004-2006 timeframe.
Both were on a sharp decline by 2007 and are quite out of favor by
now. Skip them and use some or all of the others that have been
mentioned in this thread.

 

[Nil]

Spybot and AdAware usage probably peaked in the 2004-2006
timeframe. Both were on a sharp decline by 2007 and are quite out
of favor by now. Skip them and use some or all of the others that
have been mentioned in this thread.

Spybot seems pretty weak any more. However, I do like and use it's
Immunize feature, which updates the Hosts file, and IE's and Firefox's
bad guy lists with known malicious sites. Otherwise, it's become pretty
lame.

I still have AdAware installed, but not for long, I think. They did
something a few of months ago that makes it take up to a half-hour to
update its definitions, during which time it slows the entire computer
down to a crawl. There are many complaints on its user forum, but the
company is unwilling to address or even acknowledge the issue. That's
unacceptable to me, and anyway the program doesn't work any better than
several other alternatives.

 

[Lewis]

In message <[email protected]>

I think I would bet on that, but she probably only uses 'freebies' which
often won't detect the newest Malware.

I've never had any complaints/problems with Avast!

OTOH, I've also not seen anything on Win7....

 

[Bob Henson]

Spybot seems pretty weak any more. However, I do like and use it's
Immunize feature, which updates the Hosts file, and IE's and Firefox's
bad guy lists with known malicious sites. Otherwise, it's become pretty
lame.

I still have AdAware installed, but not for long, I think. They did
something a few of months ago that makes it take up to a half-hour to
update its definitions, during which time it slows the entire computer
down to a crawl. There are many complaints on its user forum, but the
company is unwilling to address or even acknowledge the issue. That's
unacceptable to me, and anyway the program doesn't work any better than
several other alternatives.

I certainly agree about AdAware. As to updating and adding to IE and
Firefox's block lists, SpyWareBlaster is quite handy - it adds a huge
long list of sites to block to both browsers with no overheads whatever
- you just need to run it every now and then.

 

[Ed Cryer]

Spybot seems pretty weak any more. However, I do like and use it's
Immunize feature, which updates the Hosts file, and IE's and Firefox's
bad guy lists with known malicious sites. Otherwise, it's become pretty
lame.

I still have AdAware installed, but not for long, I think. They did
something a few of months ago that makes it take up to a half-hour to
update its definitions, during which time it slows the entire computer
down to a crawl. There are many complaints on its user forum, but the
company is unwilling to address or even acknowledge the issue. That's
unacceptable to me, and anyway the program doesn't work any better than
several other alternatives.

Same here with Ad-Aware.
I've found that if I clear the Firefox cookies folder before running it,
then it finds nothing! That's been the case for the last four weekly runs.
I've also installed Malwarebytes, and I've been running that weekly. It
takes a good 25mins, and finds nothing either.
I'm soon going to decide between the two; may even end up ditching them
both.

Ed

 

[Nil]

Same here with Ad-Aware.
I've found that if I clear the Firefox cookies folder before
running it, then it finds nothing! That's been the case for the
last four weekly runs. I've also installed Malwarebytes, and I've
been running that weekly. It takes a good 25mins, and finds
nothing either.

Well, nothing wrong with that. If you aren't otherwise infected, both
those programs would be likely to flag tracking cookies as suspicious.
If you've just deleted all your cookies, there would be nothing left to
find.

I'm soon going to decide between the two; may even
end up ditching them both.

AdAware does occasionally find some stuff that Malwarebytes misses and
vice-versa, as does SuperAntiSpyware. I run all three of them every
once in a while.

 

[Dave]

I am the administrator but it doesn't seem to make a difference when I
want to delete or move something. Sometimes I can drag a file to the
desktop, then to the recycle bin.

It's been a while since I installed Win 7, but when I did I set my machine
up with one account as "administrator"--it doesn't matter what you name it,
it is supposed to have administrator privileges--and continued to use Win 7
for a short while. This is how I had set up all previous versions of
Windows, even Vista, which all the guru's said should not be done due to
security and etc. The recommendation was to use the UAC, which I found
tiring and over-rated, but that's just me as I'm the only one using my
computer so I don't think I need it.
But, I ran into a problem with Win7, as I remember it was something similar
to what you are experiencing, and it has to do with permissions. I wish I
could give you more specifics, but it's been a while so I don't remember all
the details. Fortunately, I found a fix posted in a forum that will
sometimes work, which is a backdoor method of creating the administrator
account and a user account. As I remember the instructions it was not an
authorized MS fix, but was posted by a MS certified guru like Ken Blake so I
figured it was worth a shot. According to him, sometimes the setup I was
using will cause a problem and sometimes it won't, it is something inherent
and hidden is the innards of Win7. The fix sometimes won't work so the only
solution is to reinstall the OS, create the admin account and then the user
account so all the permissions will be correct. You may be able to find it
by searching this topic, that's how I found it. The failure in this
situation is that MS does not make it clear you have to install with an
admin account and a user account as they have increased the reliance on the
UAC.
Hopefully someone in this NG will be able to add to this or correct any
mistakes I've made.
HTH,
Dave

 

[Dave]

I remember a long thread ( quelle suprise! ) on a microsoft vista
newsgroup
where Valorie, as she was then, complained about an orphaned context menu
entry still on her computer even though she had uninstalled the program.
I think it was SuperAntiSpyware (or maybe Spybot). Same old story of
plenty
of help but all of it seeming to confuse her even further. Of course it
was because
everyone trying to help was a 'techie' talking technical stuff and all she
wanted was help that a normal person could understand.
Back then she used to get her next door neighbour's son to fix her
computer because
he was ' a geek '. I wonder what happened to him.

I use MalwareBytes, Spybot and SuperAntiSpyware, all free and do not have a
problem with malware. I also use MS Security Essentials which is free and
one of the top rated antivirus.
With that being said, the info you post concerning her on a Vista group with
the same attitude makes me second-think my opinion of where she's at in
terms of Win 7. I always thought she was lost due to the higher learning
curve on Win 7, but I think I'm now agreeing with the opinion she wants to
be spoon-fed and is very quick to criticize when answers don't fit her
opinions or when someone wants more info.
Maybe she should go to a machine with an Apple OS, which is almost all
automatic and if you do screw it up you just do a reinstall. She'd probably
complain then that she can't tailor this or that like she could in Windows.
:-D
Dave

 

[Valorie *~]

Once you gave the correct information the answer was easy...

Have you any idea what I can so about the newest W-7 problem of getting the
text-only error "There was a problem sending the command to the program?"
Googling and going to the MS website was a waste of time.

 

[Nil]

Have you any idea what I can so about the newest W-7 problem of
getting the text-only error "There was a problem sending the
command to the program?" Googling and going to the MS website was
a waste of time.

There you go again, you silly joker you.

 

[Ed Cryer]

There you go again, you silly joker you.

Nil desperandum, amice. Maybe we should try it in Latin.

Ed

 

[Valorie *~]

Remember, just because you don't think you need security doesn't mean it
shouldn't be there. Malware could be running the context of another user
and locked down NTFS file permissions could be the difference between
personal information being sent out or not.

There is only one user account on this PC. We ran into too many problems
with multi user accounts in the past.

 

[Valorie *~]

Anyone else ending up on Facebook, or is it just happening to Valorie *~
?

Tonight I got this:

Invalid or Deleted File
The key you provided for file download was invalid. This is usually caused
because the file is no longer stored on Mediafire. This occurs when the file
is removed by the originating user or Mediafire.
Click here to view our help resources

 

[Valorie *~]

I gave it a try and found that a Business Week page opened while the
file was downloading. Tried it a second time and a Realtor.com page
opened while the file was downloading. If I kept at it, I suppose a
Facebook page would come up eventually. Tried it one last time and a
page for mycollegedegree.com opened during the download.

THANK YOU for posting this.

 

[Seth]

There is only one user account on this PC. We ran into too many problems
with multi user accounts in the past.

And that changes the underlying design behind the NTFS file system how?
Bottom line, when the drive I formatted as NTFS there will be NTFS file
permission issues if you don't pay attention. That is exactly what happened
here.

Oh, and regardless of you thinking there is only 1 account on your machine,
there are more. There is the default user account created during OOBE (Out
of box experience, when you turn it on the first time), guest (disabled by
default), administrator (disabled by default) and often times service
accounts created/added by applications that may get installed.

Then, for the sake of NTFS security, you have service level accounts (like
many protected files are owned by the TrustedInstaller service).

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I gave it a try and found that a Business Week page opened while the
file was downloading. Tried it a second time and a Realtor.com page
opened while the file was downloading. If I kept at it, I suppose a
Facebook page would come up eventually. Tried it one last time and a
page for mycollegedegree.com opened during the download.

You may be the winner of $1,000,000!

 

[Char Jackson]

You may be the winner of $1,000,000!

Now you tell me.