trojan rootkit and virus prevention

how can I protect my sony vaio laptop from getting infected with another trojan rootkit or any virus that will ruin it?

are you folks still recommending MSE? (my computer tech is recommending AVG. he says MSE has gone downhill.)

are you still recommending web of trust add-on?

would it be ok if I keep my AVG and got the web of trust add-on? would that be a smart way to go?

also, I wanted to go to many webites that the web of trust (I had web of trust, until I had my clean install) had a question mark in a little blue circle for.
some of these websites were for sites that I thought were for well known highly respected music gear equipment.
I got the question marks in little blue circles so many times, that eventually I went to the sites anyway.

then 10 days ago, I went to a site (question mark in little blue circle) looking for info on a guitar slide I had just bought.
BAAAAAM............trojan rootkit. major trouble.

I do not want to go through that again. would appreciate any information on what I should do, so that does not happen again.

thank you everyone.

Common sense is all you really need. I run multiple computer with no AV of any type and have never been infected.

It's all about where you go, what you do and how you use the computer.

Other then that MSE is very good from what I read.

richnrockville said:

Chas53, I recommend that you get the program malwarebytes. They have a free version but I pay for the program and it intercepts web browsing that might be bad sites.

I believe that the money is well spent. Malwarebytes : Free anti-malware download
is their website. They have a free version as well as the $24.95 version.

I had malwarebytes. but I had the free one. guessing that one does not intercept bad web sites.
though I would gladly pay $25 if it actually works.

Rich

edwar said:

Common sense is all you really need. I run multiple computer with no AV of any type and have never been infected.

It's all about where you go, what you do and how you use the computer.

Other then that MSE is very good from what I read.

I really thought I was using common sense. I don't go to porn sites. I don't go to sites to download free stuff.

AVG is good enough to protect you from tojans, virus, spywares, malwares, worms and rootkits. Plus the Link Scanner checks each and every link and blocks them if any threat is detected.

I agree with Rich. Malwarebytes is a great investment. Many times you can find online specials that drop the price below $20.

Having said that I would also recommend you keep on hand a few trusted on-demand scanners. No anti-malware product is going to be 100% effective 100% of the time. If there was such a thing we'd all be using it. A few recommended products (all free) are:

Superantispyware

ESET Online Scanner

Windows Defender Offline

TDSSKiller

And one other thing to consider. If you know you have a clean computer, create a system image. The system image is like a snapshot of your entire hard drive. All of your programs, personal settings, files, folders, etc are captured in that image. If your machine becomes infected, crashes, etc you can restore the image and be up and running in about 30 minutes. Your machine will be exactly like it was the day you made the image. The more often you image the machine the more current it will be.

Just my 2 cents.

skanungo said:

AVG is good enough to protect you from tojans, virus, spywares, malwares, worms and rootkits. Plus the Link Scanner checks each and every link and blocks them if any threat is detected.

thank you. I have Avg free. do you think I have Link Scanner? or how can I check. (I just looked. did not see it.)

lehnerus2000 said:

Any site can have poisoned links.

I run FF + NoScript to protect myself from rouge js and XSS attacks.

Creating backup system images (regularly) is the way to protect yourself.
Make sure they are stored in an external location.

If your system gets infected simply obliterate it and then restore your backup.

I backup all of my operating systems (and personal data) before I install the Patch Tuesday updates.

thank you.

marsmimar said:

I agree with Rich. Malwarebytes is a great investment. Many times you can find online specials that drop the price below $20.

Having said that I would also recommend you keep on hand a few trusted on-demand scanners. No anti-malware product is going to be 100% effective 100% of the time. If there was such a thing we'd all be using it. A few recommended products (all free) are:

Superantispyware

ESET Online Scanner

Windows Defender Offline

TDSSKiller

And one other thing to consider. If you know you have a clean computer, create a system image. The system image is like a snapshot of your entire hard drive. All of your programs, personal settings, files, folders, etc are captured in that image. If your machine becomes infected, crashes, etc you can restore the image and be up and running in about 30 minutes. Your machine will be exactly like it was the day you made the image. The more often you image the machine the more current it will be.

Just my 2 cents.

thank you for all recommendations. as far as I know my computer is now clean. clean install. its acting very good.
is it to difficult to create a system image?
would you please tell me how to do it? or guide me to the tutorial?
I am a little gunshy after what I have been through, about messing with anything.

but your idea sounds like a very smart one indeed.

Mecurium??? (Spelling) Reflect Free is recommended on this forum site. I personally use Acronis True Image but I do all imaging Offline, from a Boot USB stick.

Never cared for doing them from inside Windows and if the system crashes and you have to Load an image back on a wiped drive you'll need to do that from a Boot DVD or USB stick anyway. I Image my Boot drive, a SSD and temp store it on another internal drive. This makes making the image very fast, maybe 10-15 minutes tops. But that all depends on how much data is on the drive. Once the imaging is done I reboot into Windows and copy the new image over to an external drive.