Anti-Virus

[jfarnsworth]

I'm having difficulties with 2 supposed viruses on my computer. Norton anti-virus recognizes they are there but apparently can't delete them. I constantly run a scan but it seems about 20 minutes on my pc then it slows way down. I start to receive norton pop ups saying it identified a spybot worm then deleted it but then 2 more show up. Both of those say norton can detect them but they can not be deleted. Is there another anti-virus better or what should I do at this point?

 

[OUMoose]

Do you have some specific names of the viruses/trojans? Sometimes the scanner itself can't remove the problem, and they have special tools to take them out.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

First: Are you running multiple antivirus programs at the same time? This can be a bad thing.

Secondly: Are you confusing spyware with viruses? They are different animals.

Third: Ditch Norton. See this thread: http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19960

I recomend the following mix:
AntiVirus: Grisoft
Spyware: Primary - Adaware Secondary - Spybot (running in background)
PopUp Blocker: For IE use Google Toolbar. Or run Firefox.
Firewall: ZoneAlarm.

 

[jfarnsworth]

A lot of good info. Thanks Bob.

 

[Cthulhu]

Another thing to condider:

A lot of AV programs can't delete the virus/trojan if it is loaded on startup. Some virii will actually attempt to halt any antivirus .exe file it finds.

Try booting into safe mode and running your AV software from there to see if it can find and eliminate the virus.

The best option would be to have the virus name and see if Norton or McAfee have a virus removal tool for that particular bug.

Also, sometimes a virus/trojan can reside in your Win XP restore files for System Restore. If that's the case, System Restore would need to be disabled to basically erase all previous restore points, the machine rebooted, then System Restore enabled again.

Cthulhu