Monday, March 27, 2006

Viruses, Firewalls and Updates

All those invaders have been eliminated. I used AVG, Avast,
Kaspersky(only for a short while before I terminated and
uninstalled it, made my PC ran like snail) and Antivir.

Then cleaned my PC from spyware and adware using Spybot
and Ad-aware.

I'm satisfied with the result and now I have the latest
version of AVG antivirus on my PC.

Firewall was different thing altogether. I've been using
ZoneAlarm for a few years and until last week I was happy
with the performance.

After finished installing antivirus and spyware/ad aware
application, I proceeded to update the latest version of
ZoneAlarm. When I tried to install it problems start coming.
This is my fourth update. The first three updating is
without hiccups. In the past it knew what to do with the
earlier version.

I searched the web and found out steps that are necessary
to overcome the problem from Zone Labs Customer Care link.

do this
do that
delete this
delete that....

After going through all the steps diligently, guess what?
I'm stuck with a file called vsmon.exe, residing at
WINNT\System32\zonelabs directory which I cannot delete,
remove or rename, even from command prompt under safe mode
after booting from floopy drive,....no nothing.

The next day I search for "delete vsmon.exe" and at Unlocker ,
got this advice. Use unlocker to delete any application that
seems to be stubborn.

So using unlocker I managed to unlock and delete vsmon.exe.
Next I installed latest version of ZoneAlarm and after
finished installing and rebooting my PC, what happened? My PC
ran like a turtle, a bit faster then when I ran Kaspersky.
Most of the time I got sleepy and slept in front of the PC
waiting for something to appear on my screen.

So I uninstalled ZoneAlarm again and have to go through the
same process all over again, yawnnnn..... time to be sleepy.

After that I looked for other firewalls, saved Jettico and
Filseclab from download.com. I've installed Jettico and still
studying it, seems quite technical. I'm still not clear on
how to use it properly, so most of the time I have to allow
all packets through the firewall. Hmnnn.....think of having
something but not using it. Well, I'll learn.

No doubt about that.

So what can be learn here, my advise to myself is to have
latest antivirus and firewall and update them regularly.

Next make sure Windows is regularly updated. It's free and
can be done automatically.

About the website that sent me the virus, I think I don't
really have any choice. I wouldn't know if a malware is
waiting to ambush, and sometime in life when you got to do
it, you gotta do it.

And if you don't want to fork out some money for cleaning the
harddisk you should be comfortable enough to know what to do if
your PC is infected. Six years ago I took computer assembly
course for a month and it is really handy when there is problem
with my PC.

But in life you don't need to know everything, you can always
pay for other people services.

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