Tag: antivirus

AVG Updating Issues

AVG is the antivirus that I recommend to everyone.  Ever since Norton Antivirus hosed three of my computers all in the same day I have refused to use them at home.  AVG rarely has given me problems.  Once, I couldn’t install it on my main machine which was running Windows Vista 32 bit.  I ended up installing Vista 64 bit a few months later and then it did work.

I helped a friend a few days ago with an updating problem he was having.  It kept saying the database was out of date.  I had him bring me his laptop and I took a look.  I said the date was wrong on his clock.  It was set for 1 month into the future.  Well, AVG releases a weekly database update so it thought it’s current database was old.  A restart of the computer and everything was back to normal.  It just goes back to the starting with the easy things first when troubleshooting.

Be Careful What you Download!

Maybe this needs to be taught in school.  Don’t open something unless you are certain you know you can trust it.  If you do planon opening something that seems suspicious such as a key generator from your favorite p2p application, then you better have a good antivirus.  Speaking of Antiviruses, I need to write about them soon.  I’m an AVG fan.  It’s free and it does a better job than the big ones out there such as Norton and Symantec.

You can never say never in the world of computers but you can make some very good assumptions on how you can and cannot get a virus.

Ways you cannot get a virus:

  • downloading mp3 files
  • downloading picture files
  • downloading pdf files
  • opening an email but not its attachment
  • opening Microsoft Office files (you will get a warning about macros if it has one and their potential to do bad)

Ways you can get a virus:

  • opening ANY executable file.  These are extensions of .exe and .bat
  • opening an attachment that has an executable file in it. most email programs won’t let you send .exe files
  • opening a zip or RARed file (compressed file) and then double clicking on an executable file

Notice anything familiar about my last three items?  If you answered “they are all executable files” then you win a congrats! from me. 🙂

I will have to go more in depth on how to remove viruses but the main thing to remember is if it does look like it’s gone and it shows up right away again, then you need to run your antivirus program in safe mode.  Some viruses are a pain to remove.