My Mom's Computer isn't Working

[gafee2001]

So my mother called me and wants me to fix her computer. I got there, and loaded Symantec antivirus on it (she had no virus scan) and ran it to find 35 "infections" on it! After spending a few days attempting to delete them all, I decided to run Lavasoft Ad-aware on it and cannot seem to eliminate all of the adware.

Her problem is that the computer is opening internet browsers without her clicking on them. The browsers open up and navigate to advertising websites.

Does anyone know any good ad removal software?


Also, now the symantec antivirus software will run auto-protect, where it scans your computer for attacks as they occur and quells them. I tried to figure out how to fix it, but no luck yet. Any hints?

[picklefiend12]

Avast is pretty good.. I used to have that same issue, and turns out there was a trojan from stupid adware.  You can get a 60 day trial of it at their site.  I was able to uninstall after the trial, and redownload it and got another trial..

[gafee2001]

That sounds decent. I'm not familiar with Avast. Do you have any more information about the product, or even a link so I can go get it?


Thanks!

[picklefiend12]

Just google Avast home edition, you'll find their site, with all the info and to download

[solidacindy]

It's kinda funny because my mom's computer isn't working either, literally! It keeps restarting by itself and I can't do anything without it doing just that... but most likely there's a virus on it or something (my nephew's PC used to do the same thing ~because of a virus~) anyway I looked the problem up on the internet and I think that I just have to re-install XP. Hopefully that will do the trick...

[destinyredd]

Avast is pretty good.. I used to have that same issue, and turns out there was a trojan from stupid adware.  You can get a 60 day trial of it at their site.  I was able to uninstall after the trial, and redownload it and got another trial..

I like Avast too, but I downloaded the free version and it updates itself.

*tip* Make sure you remove any other virus scanner before downloading it,
because you don't want your pc to wind up having conflicts with 2 virus scanners.
(One may be trying to run in the background, and may crash your machine.) 

[jasparefaw]

This is very helpful. I'll check it out

[scrapdizle]

I agree, Avast is the best anti-virus program ever!  and its FREE...    I download tons of files from the internet and used to be plagued by viruses and adware.  But ever since ive been using avast i havent had any problems what so ever!

[oakland43]

is the website to download it avast.com?

[destinyredd]

is the website to download it avast.com?

The FREE Avast download link is:
http://www.download.com/avast-Home-Edition/3000-2239_4-10019223.html?cdlPid=10888427

This is not a referral link.
Straight up, it's their free virus scanner site for everyone. 

Again: Remove any OTHER virus scanner FIRST, BEFORE installing ANY new virus scanner, to avoid CONFLICTS
within' your pc. 

[jaymz462]

Check out malwarebytes, it's pretty good: http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

Spybot Search & Destroy is good too, especially when used with Ad-Aware: http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html

Or, just reformat the thing 

[gta535]

go 2 best buy or local computer fixing place or find virus programs and free de-bugging programs

[ginnokaze]

Um...35? That number seems a bit high...I had to reinstall Vista last time and i only had 6...

[wafflejaw]

go to download.com there should be something there to download to check for viruses

[Texassulcatas]

My computer kept freezing every two seconds a few weeks ago almost to the point that I couldn't keep it on long enough to log in. This is what I did..I downloaded and ran CCleaner, RegSeeker, and Spybot search and destroy. I ended up finding over 700 problems on my computer and was able to fix them all. All three of those services are free to download too. Good luck fixing all of the problems!!! Oh and just FYI, I run all of these programs once a week to prevent having the same issues appear again.