If you have ever had to clean up your computer to get rid of garbage programs such as browser toolbars and unknown “utilities”, it is important to know how these get on your system so it will not happen again.

For the most part, unless you specifically installed these programs, they probably get installed by sneaky installers. For a more in-depth look at how this happens, check out this post titled “How Does Spyware, Malware or Crapware Get on My Computer?“.

It only took 2.5 hours to reach [a high level of garbage]…simply surfing wherever for “whatever looked interesting or different”, downloading things like screensavers, file-sharing applications, and installing questionable software from advertisements.

As I have said before, the most effective protection is education. If you can treat the problem instead of continually treating the the symptoms, you will not have this problem ever again.

You may have seen in tech news articles in the past that Microsoft was working on it’s own release of an anti-virus product to compliment Windows Defender. A couple of days ago their solution, Security Essentials, was released (from beta).

Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free* download from Microsoft that is simple to install, easy to use, and always kept up to date so you can be assured your PC is protected by the latest technology. It’s easy to tell if your PC is secure — when you’re green, you’re good. It’s that simple.

Microsoft Security Essentials runs quietly and efficiently in the background so that you are free to use your Windows-based PC the way you want—without interruptions or long computer wait times.

If you google Security Essentials, you will see it gets a mixed bag of reviews. Although the sites I tend to frequent have given it more positive evalutations.

Is anyone going to drop their current AV program and give this one a shot?

Microsoft has just announced some beta anti-virus/spyware/malware protection software called Microsoft Essentials. It’s free and free is good.

This software is only available to people running a legal copy of Windows. This is fine. My copies of XP are all legal as is my Windows 7.

After jumping thru several hoops trying to download this thing, I sign in with my Windows Live ID (required), fill out a registration form (required), validate my email address (required), and THEN…

The red box says:

The invitation you are using belongs to another registered account. If you believe you received this message in error, please try using another Windows Live ID/Passport account or contact mchelp@microsoft.com for additional assistance.

What?

Geez, thanks Microsoft. Now I can’t even try your software.

So if you want to try out Microsoft Essentials, if you can get past the registration process, you did better than me.

If you have ever researched free anti-virus tools, you have probably come across an open source application called ClamWin which is built on top of the ClamAV engine. One big feature that ClamWin lacks, however, is it does not have ‘active’ scanning protection. Simply put, files are not automatically scanned when they are opened, you have to manually scan it. This ‘detriment’ has it’s benefits though.

Because ClamWin doesn’t offer active protection, it has virtually zero impact on system performance. Since the overhead implemented by active scanners can be significant (think about it, each time you open a file it has to be scanned first) it can really knock down your system performance. Additionally, you can typically only have a single active scanner on a system (for obvious reasons), but as many passive scanners as you like.

Now, the reason ClamWin is a great compliment to your existing AV program is because it is a passive scanner it can run next to your existing utility with no impact on it. This gives you the ability to use its scanning engine to perform full system scans to ‘double-check’ you system. Additionally, ClamWin is open source which means it is complete free for personal and commercial use.

Say or believe what you want about the effectiveness of its scanning engine, but two sets of eyes are better than one. You can configure ClamWin to attempt to clean infected files or simply have it report on and automatically email virus detections. Anyway you slice it, having ClamWin as a secondary AV tool is a great way to add protection with minimal impact on performance.

Anti-virus software mostly works the same way. It scans your hard drive for particular signatures that indicate a known computer virus that is contained in the virus definitions supplied by the company. If it finds a sign of a virus, it will typically offer to quarantine or delete the infected file. Quarantining the file will place it in a tightly controlled area by the anti-virus software so that it cannot infect the computer.

Anti-virus programs work best as a line of defense. In some instances, they can repair the damage after infection. In other cases, it cannot. So, what do you do if your computer is already infected by a computer virus?

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There are new viruses, worms and trojans coming out all the time. The volume of new virus activity is actually pretty staggering. Some worms and viruses end up becoming more famous than others due to the speed of spread or the type of damage it causes. This, of course, is what the creator of the virus wanted – media coverage and notoriety. The larger majority of viruses do not end up creating much of a ripple. Others can create tidal waves.

Let us look at a few examples of computer virus and/or worm:

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There are a lot of different worms and viruses out there. You may think that the entire thing is beyond your control. However, it really is no more beyond your control than a biological virus. A biological virus, when it infects the host, becomes apparent by way of certain observable symptoms. You are not going to get a little notification on your screen saying “You are infected with the BLAH virus”. Instead, you will begin to notice things that are out of the ordinary.

Here are some typical signs that your computer may be infected with a computer virus:

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Not all computer viruses are equal. After all, virus writers are often trying to impress their colleagues. Nobody would be impressed if they all did the same thing. So, yes, there is a lot of variety, not only in what the viruses do, how they spread, but also in methodology.

We can classify this whole area into the following:

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All computer viruses have an author. It was programmed by a real live person with the sole intent of creating a piece of software that will function like a virus. The people who create computer viruses are fairly tech inclined as they obviously have good programming skills. In fact, some virus programmers are actually employed as programmers. They are not employed to create viruses, however they may work for a large IT company performing legitimate programming but create viruses in their spare time. Or perhaps their creation of the computer virus was a more or less one-time thing on their part just to see if they could do it. Which leads us to ask: why would a person create a computer virus? Reasons could include:

• Seeing if they can do it
• Getting revenge (on a company, for example)
• To generally create trouble
• To gain notoriety and see if they can get their work talked about in the press
• To combat boredom

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