Puran Utilities as of now?


  1. Posts : 300
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64
       #1

    Puran Utilities as of now?


    I decided to do a complete reinstall last night and spent a couple of hours on and today I was busy setting things up again when I opened up Chrome only to find it taking me to some homepage of a site called snap.do!

    I've been infected again

    So I'm reinstalling everything again as I feel that it's the only way to be sure I'll get rid of this adware/crapware whatever it is taking over my entire computer and not letting me uninstall it.

    I think Puran Utilities is the culprit, or the version I downloaded which I thought was a legit version from the official site. I still think it is, but I don't know. Only other culprit it could be is VLC, but I don't think so, I think it was Puran and I tried uninstalling it and reinstalling it and it added some other crapware, and while it was installing it said I'd get this and dozens of other utilities, whatever that means, probably some crapware.

    It's really hard to stop these things sometimes!

    What's the general low down on Puran and other utilities these days?

    Can someone point me in the direction of the latest tutorial for setting up my Windows 7 Sony Vaio again please? Is MSE still the best virus checker etc...
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 1,449
    Windows 7 ultimate 64-bit
       #2

    Well; as far as setting things up again; that should be pretty straightforward. Just follow the instructions, etc that come up on screen. As for the best anti virus; well there are a lot of different opinions on which one is the best. But; myself; Ive been using AVG anti virus and Ive had pretty good luck with it so far. But yea you can use Microsoft Essentials for windows as well. As for the utilities; I would only use these: Adware cleaner for windows for checking for Adware; Superantispyware for checking for and cleaning spyware; and Malwarebytes for checking for and cleaning malware. Here are the links to those:

    Downloading AdwCleaner

    SUPERAntiSpyware - Downloading File

    https://www.malwarebytes.org/mwb-download/
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 39
    Windows 7 64-bit enterprise
       #3

    This doesn't directly address you question, but given what you describe, I think it would be very helpful for you to learn to make system images. I use clonezilla to make an image of my installation and save it to a drive that the operating system is not installed on. An image is a bitmap of the drive and if you have an image, you can re-install your operating system in about 5 minutes.

    I do an install of the OS, hardware drivers, windows update, and highly trusted security applications. I also make my standard system configurations and customizations. At that point, I take an image. At any time I think I have a problem, I can restore to this image in about 5 minutes and am back to a clean system.

    Next I install trusted applications and take another image. Any applications that are suspect get left to last. Generally, you can produce a very clean operating system with most of you applications installed. This can save allot of time when you have to re-install. Last you can install suspect applications one at a time and see where problems occur. If one does show up, you can go back to your clean image.

    It also helps a great deal to have your OS and applications installed in their own partition or on their own drive. This allows you to restore images of your OS and leave your data alone. I install my internet applications (email, browser, etc) on a different partition from the OS so I don't lose this stuff when I need to restore. It helps to use a browser and email application that allows you to backup and import profile information in case you ever have to restore that part of your setup.

    I use Comodo ISP for my security needs and find it very good. If I do think I have some kind of infection, I generally just restore to a good image. If I need to do a malware sweep, I use the malware removal process from majorgeeks.com. This is a set of tools that you run and then post the logs on their forum. An expert there will go through your logs and respond with cleaning instructions and advice. This is a very nice service and very good of folks to take the time, so that is what I use when necessary.

    LMHmedchem
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 300
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64
    Thread Starter
       #4

    I think I solved the the overactive fan problem, whatever it was causing it's gone now. I've taken two new disk images at different stages so if things don't work out I can go back and not have to go through a million updates.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 12,012
    Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, 64-bit
       #5

    STU9000 said:

    What's the general low down on Puran and other utilities these days?
    The general lowdown is that they are unnecessary at best and damaging at worst.

    CCleaner is the only third party utility that is almost universally respected, but you certainly don't need it either.
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 25,847
    Windows 10 Pro. 64/ version 1709 Windows 7 Pro/64
       #6

    STU9000

    Posting the same problem in different threads makes it very hard to help.

    FREE Great Programs for Windows 7 [2]

    What solved the fan problem??
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 300
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64
    Thread Starter
       #7

    Reinstalling my OS solved the fan problem. The reason I was reinstalling everything was because I had a lot of stuff bloating up my computer so I thought a spring clean was the best option. I have no idea what was wrong before, all I know is I reintalled and then installed a few things I'm now learning I don't really need and there it was, more spamware taking over my browsers. That's all I know.

    I'm posting about my reinstall reboot in here, in the other thread I'm just asking about Puran, because it's a thread about software in general, so what. At the time I thought Puran was giving me bloatware, so I asked there as well.

    I had some problems, I came on here and asked, and I got the help I needed. It was easy, what's the problem?
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 25,847
    Windows 10 Pro. 64/ version 1709 Windows 7 Pro/64
       #8

    From post #7
    what's the problem?
    I hope that statement was meant friendly.

    The problem is when you have one computer with problems and you post in several threads it makes it hard for other to follow therefore it makes it hard for members to help you.

    Example:

    A computer has 3 problems.
    1. Windows explorer crashes
    2. I.E. 11 freezes up
    3. Very slow Start Up

    You only need one thread because they all might be related.
    The members helping you with #1 have no idea what is going on in the #2 & 3 thread which can cause all kinds of problems.

    If you have anymore friendly questions I will try and answer them.
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 457
    Microsoft Windows 10 Home Build 15036
       #9

    My two cents on the issue:

    I never download anything that expressly says that it will do everything. I know that sounds strange coming from a Windows user, but it's mostly true. I don't expect the program I use for AV to be a good sys defragger, and I don't expect my registry cleaner to be a good memory optimizer. Now, I say this while I advocate using MSE and the Windows firewall. While these progs come from the same place as my OS and my Office software, I'm fairly sure they'll work with Windows simply because they come from the same publisher.

    My next point comes from experience. Never, never, never use "Simple install" when adding things like 3rd party security software or plug-ins. Use the "Advanced" options, then watch at every step to be sure things like "Bing search toolbar", etc., from being installed with the software you want. It will also prevent things like Home-hijacking. Next thing you know, snap.do becomes your homepage, and no matter how many times you uninstall Snap, it's back the first time you open your web browser...

    After having been a system tech for several years, I've seen some odd crap on systems, but it mostly boils down to folks who install software they think they need, and end up with all sorts of crap on their systems simply because they don't take the time to look at each window as they install. "Oh, that's to hard to follow..." It's "tl;dr" taken to the worst extreme.
      My Computer


 

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