To be honest, I'm not sure.

One of our computer-saavy friends suggested I install "Avast!" as it had a Virtumonde killer. I did, and it didn't seem to do any good. In fact, on its first scan, it didn't even find it. However, on Friday it started giving me alerts that it was finding threats. I did as it instructed and vaulted them. All of a sudden, the warning messages I was getting from Windows Updater disappeared and I was able to download all my Windows updates. Apparently this thing had been doing the rounds because one of the Windows updates suddenly swatted another bit of the virus. I rebooted, and my laptop was running faster.

However, when I went on Firefox I was still getting the occasional popup and if I went into Internet Explorer I would get redirected to a page that was supposedly a virus-blaster (you had to buy it, natch) but which actually puts another worm on your computer.

First I realized that although I had downloaded Firefox 3, I wasn't actually using it. So I fixed my links and got rid of 2. Plus I also went into the Registry as Jerry suggested and cleaned out all the "Browser Helpers" or whatever it was. Avast! isn't picking up any more signs and I'm not getting an IE redirect or a Firefox popup anymore. If it's still there, it's hiding out. No way to know.

Labels: computers

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:46:00 AM

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