The onslaught of malware!
May 2nd, 2008 Posted in InternetOn a typical weekday I usually get about 300 legitimate emails from customers, vendors and friends. Lately many of these emails have referenced malware on home computers. The problem is that the typical home computer is not very immune to these infections. Good virus protection costs money and most of you would rather live with a few popups than pay the $50 to update. But the truth is if you are running Windows on your home computer you do “need” protection.
So if you are unwilling to pay, here are a few free tools that work pretty well:
AVG Free Antivirus: http://free.grisoft.com/
Ad-Aware malware protection: http://lavasoft.com/
Spybot Search and Destroy: http://www.safer-networking.org/
These tools are a decent substitute for the pay versions but are a little more manual so make sure you read the instructions carefully!
It is always better to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to security, but if you think you are infected BACK UP YOUR DATA…
-mike