Over the years, malware infections have become a major cause of concern for all computer users. Collectively, malware is defined as any malicious program, and takes on various forms according to its purpose. Thus, a virus is malware, a trojan is malware, and so are worms and other malicious software like spyware, adware, etc. These work toward impairing your system and generating many different types of errors.

At the same time, an average Windows user can deal with these errors independently, as it takes no complicated computer skill or sophisticated knowledge to troubleshoot and resolve malware related issues. We now discuss some steps that you can follow to deal with the common errors:

• Scan your computer for infections using a good antivirus tool – Viruses, even after advances in the internet and computer security, remain unconquered. There are already infinite types of viruses swarming the internet and cybercafés, and many more are being coded every day. One might come across errors like d.exe, which is a trojan file usually mistakenly downloaded from the email or the csrss.exe and smss.exe, which are system processes, but can be hijacked by viruses for the sake of avoiding detection and acquiring special permissions. Therefore, it is a must that you purchase an industrial-strength antivirus tool from a good website. Also, don’t forget to regularly update the antivirus tool, which can be done free-of-charge by connecting to the internet. Also, scan the system regularly for any possibility of a virus lurking on the system.
• Implement a robust firewall – A firewall is the most important tool that shields your system from network attacks. While it can’t fight the battle against the viruses, it can certainly keep them from getting connected to the internet and extending the malice.There are a lot of good firewalls available as freeware, and you can choose any of them as well. It must be stressed here that even though every Windows system comes with a default firewall, it is hardly of any use, so you may want to go for a professional firewall.

• Registry cleanup – The registry plays a vital role in the smooth and error-free functioning of the system, and is the most important component in the entire Windows system. It is a master index containing all entries required by all the system programs and processes installed and running on your Windows computer. However, with use, the registry accumulates a lot of incorrect and conflicting entries as well, which result in system crashes and impaired system performance.To avoid such a scenario, one should invest in a good registry cleaner tool to scan your registry for problems, and fix them with the click of a mouse. All this is very easy to perform, and requires no special skill than ordinary interaction with a software.

As we have shown in this article, dealing with Windows malware issues is really simple. All one needs to do is get the right tools and the right guidance. On top of it all, the learning experience earned by fixing the errors yourself will be a rich source of satisfaction.

Safety Tips for Using The Internet

Safety Tips for Using The Internet

Fast improving Internet services and new online features have made the Internet an essential part of our daily lives. Introduced only a few decades ago, the Internet has gone through some major changes and now stands as a synonym to both knowledge and entertainment.

As every good thing has some drawbacks, even our friendly Internet has its own set of problems that makes it unsafe for computer users. To help you ensure online safety, we have listed a few tips for you to follow:

1. Implement a firewall: Firewall is the first security block between your computer (or network) and the public network, that is, the Internet. To keep your PC safe from hackers and other malicious programs, it is essential that you implement a firewall and set your security options as required. All Windows XP and Windows Vista computers are shipped with a built-in Windows Firewall that you can enable to ensure your online safety. Many third-party firewall programs, such as ZoneAlarm (vsmone.exe) and Symantec Norton Personal Firewall are also popular among users.
2. Ensure the safety of your personal information: Many websites today ask you to provide your full name, address, and phone numbers. Before giving out such information, you must ensure that the Web site is trustworthy and carries the required security certificates. Never give away your personal information on dubious looking Web sites because the owners of these Web sites may use your personal information for malicious purposes.
3. Prevent virus and spyware infections: The Internet is one of the main mediums through which virus and spyware infections infiltrate your PC. Out of these, several viruses, such as the iexplore.exe virus may creep onto your system disguised as legitimate Windows programs and make it almost impossible for you to get rid of them. Additionally, if you love to try new freeware games and software, you must know that these programs often come bundled with adware and spyware programs. To fight these malicious programs, it is essential that you have a reliable antivirus and antispyware tool installed on your computer.

Note: Many users opt for the Windows Defender antispyware tool, which is a Microsoft product and can be easily downloaded from the Microsoft download website. When using Windows Defender, you may encounter the 0×800106ba error when updating the tool. If this happens, you can resolve the error by uninstalling and then reinstalling the software after registering its essential DLL files.

4. Beware of email spam: Emails are a fast and effective way of reaching out to people. These features have made email a popular tool for businesses to market their products to end clients. However, emails have also become a weapon in the hands of malicious minds who use it as a mode to spam users with spyware and virus emails. The increase in spam and infected emails has given birth to the antispam software. This software is designed to check all your emails for their authenticity and then download only those emails that are deemed safe. Most of the time, your antivirus tool is equipped with an antispam tool, if it is not, you may have to opt for a separate tool.
5. Be careful while making online purchases: You must be very careful while making online monitory transactions. Before performing any such transaction, you must ensure that the Web site you are using is secure and supports encrypted transactions. You must provide your credit card and bank account numbers only if you are sure that the Web site you are on is trustworthy and secure.

In addition to the tips listed above, you must also increase the security settings of your Web browser to ensure that you do not access any malicious Web site and download any infected content to your computer.

How To Get Rid Of Malware

Malware programs such as virus, Trojans, worms, spyware and adware can infiltrate your system through many different sources. These malicious programs replicate quickly and not only generate several computer errors, but also cause frequent computer freeze ups and crashes.

So, if your PC is suddenly bombarded with several computer errors and your system becomes so slow that you just can’t get any work done, its time for you to do an immediate malware scan and removal. The following are some of the tasks that you can perform to get rid of malware from your system.

(www.clupedia.com)

Use Malware Removal Programs

First and foremost, you need to use malware removal programs, such as antivirus and antispyware to perform a full system scan and detect and remove all malicious data. Before performing the scan, it is essential that you update these tools to ensure that they are well-equipped to detect the latest malware. It is also recommended that you perform the scan in Safe Mode. Because your Windows system loads with only essential processes in Safe Mode, malware scan and removal processes in this mode are more effective.

Clean your registry

Just like all other software on your Windows PC, even malware programs need to add entries in the registry to carry out their malicious activities. Some of these programs are notorious for adding embedded registry keys that cannot be removed manually using the Windows Registry Editor (regedit) tool. These nonremovable keys are usually added to enable the malicious spyware programs to reinstall themselves after they are uninstalled. To scan and remove these malicious keys, it is advised that you use a good and reliable registry cleaner tool to perform a thorough registry scan and clean up.

It is not good to have malware programs on the system. This is the reason why as a vigilant user, you must take steps to prevent them from infecting your system. The following are some of the tasks that you can perform to prevent malware infections:

Update your system

Software and hardware manufacturers release regular software updates of their products. These updates not help in improving the performance of your system, but also help in patching up any security vulnerability in the product. Because many malware programs are developed to exploit these security threats, it is recommended that you regularly update your operating system, device drivers and other software programs installed on your PC.

Install a firewall

A firewall is a great tool that helps in blocking non-trustworthy traffic to your computer. Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems come equipped with a built-in Windows Firewall tool. You must enable this tool to block malicious data.

Enable realtime protection

Many good malware removal tools comprise the real-time protection feature. When you enable this feature, all incoming traffic to your system is analyzed by the malware removal tool and any malicious attack is reported before it can affect your system.

Be a Vigilant User

Last but not least, it is essential for you to be a vigilant user. You must:

• Never open attachments that come with unsolicited emails.
• Avoid downloading software from unreliable sources.
• Avoid giving away your confidential information on dubious and noncertified Web sites.
• Check any external media before copying data from it to the system.
• Regularly use the malware removal and registry cleaner tools to maintain a healthy PC.

In order to get rid of viruses you first have to know if you have any malicious files on your computer. If you suspect you have an infection then you should first run an anti-virus scan to see if you indeed are infected with viruses. There are plenty of anti-virus programs you can use to perform a scan. A free one I can recommend is Avast Anti-Virus. It’s a great anti-virus for home users.

Some common symptoms of virus infections are:

-Computer operations slowing down
-Lots of pop-ups
-Files become missing
-Messages saying drive is full and you know it shouldn’t be
-Strange activity such as programs opening by itself or closing by itself, or computer shutting down by itself.
-etc.

When running a virus scan be sure to physically disconnect from the internet (unplug the network cable, or turn of your wireless). After running a full system scan for viruses, the anti-virus program should be able to fix any problems or infections it found. If it can’t then make a note of the files that are infected and quarantine them so the infection doesn’t spread. If the virus software cannot fix the infections it found, it’s not a bad idea to try another vendor’s virus scan just to see if it can fix the infections. It is not recommended to just go find the infected file and delete it UNLESS you know for sure that the infected file is not needed for system operation.

Most good virus programs can fix most infections, but if you have a bad infection and substantial file and data damage then you may just want to take the ultimate step and just re-format you hard disk which will erase the entire drive and prepare it for fresh operating system install. If you opt to do this then make sure you have your Windows installation disk handy, and be sure to back up everything you would like to save because formatting the disk will erase EVERYTHING.

Performing a format and OS re-install is very easy. Just boot from the installation disk and follow the prompts. The installation actually allows you to format the drive before installing the OS.

If your infections lie on the hard disk then formatting the disk will definitely get rid of them. Some viruses are designed to alter the CMOS RAM, but this is not usual, a format of the hard disk should do the trick 98.9% of the time. Be sure to follow the advise in the Virus Prevention article to keep from being infected again.

One of the top culprits of a slow computer is too many processes. What is a process you ask? A process is anything on your computer that is running and using memory (RAM or Virtual Memory) at any given time. To see a list of the processes that are running on your computer just…

• Hit the legendary Ctrl + Alt + Del buttons on your keyboard (just once, don’t repeat or you will probably restart your computer) it may take a second for the Task Manager to show up, but it will.
• Then when the Task Manager shows up just click the Processes tab to see a list of your running processes.
• It should look like this…

You probably won’t have all the same processes as mine does above, but these are your running processes. Notice the Memory Usage of each of your running processes…

Try to roughly add up how much memory your processes are using and compare your total to your total amount of system RAM which can be found in your System Information. (shortcut - press the Windows key + Pause Break Key)

• Click Start
• Go to All Programs
• Go to Accessories
• Go to System Tools
• Click System Information
• Should look something like this…

Now comparing your amount or RAM with you total Ram usage in your processes you can judge for yourself if you are using too much RAM or not.

You can also check out the Performance Tab in your task manager…

Notice your PF (Page File or Virtual Memory) Usage, this should be kept as low as possible.

If you are getting messages that prevent you from opening programs because you do not have sufficient RAM then that is a clear sign that you need to either increase you RAM or disable some processes in your system. The best advice I can give is to not have anything running you don’t need running. If you have Yahoo Messenger, Myspace Messenger, MSN Messenger, Anti-Virus Program, Firewall, and a bunch of other icons running in your system tray at any given time, chances are you are not using all those programs at the same time so it is a good idea to close what you are not using.

I recommend downloading a great FREE program called CCleaner from Download.com. It is a great tool for cleaning your computer, your registry, unused programs, and it also helps you control your startup programs (which in turn decreases your processes, which in turn speeds up your system).

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The best way to clean up your processes go by this step by step process…

1. Examine your system tray (eg. - ) and take note of the programs that are running that you don’t want to automatically run when you turn on your computer.
2. Next open CCleaner (which I hope you downloaded because it is an essential part of this process) and do a cleaner analysis and clean your computer of the unneeded files.
3. Then it’s not a bad idea to go ahead and clean your registry (make sure to backup your registry when it asks you to).
4. Then click on tools and find those programs you’ve taken note of you don’t want anymore and remove them.
5. After you’ve removed your unwanted programs, click on startup and delete any entries you don’t want automatically starting up when you turn on your computer. (If you don’t know what some of those processes are, a great site to look up processes to find out what they are, what they do, and if you need them is Process Library. You can find pretty much any process on that site and find out if you need it or not.)
6. When you’ve done all those things, Restart your computer and see if your performance has improved.
7. If you don’t notice any faster performance, open up your task manager, and look at the processes that are running.
8. Go to the Process Library web site and check out all the processes that are running to see if you need them or not. (Some processes that may be slowing down your computer can also be viruses so be sure to check your processes thoroughly at Process Library.)

1. Never have an internet connection w/o the presence of an ACTIVE Firewall and Anti-Virus
   • Viruses have evolved to where they don’t have to be directly downloaded and executed anymore. These days even having an active internet connection with no virus protection is dangerous whether your are downloading and executing anything or not.
2. Use Firefox or any browser other than Internet Explorer if possible
   • Virus developers focus on distributing their projects to as many computers as possible
   • Roughly 79% (http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat_trends.htm) of surfers use Internet Explorer which makes IE the target browser for virus developers.
3. Don’t have your browser remember any passwords
   
   • Of course it may be a little quicker to access your online banking when your trusty IE browser automatically inputs your password, but those virus developers love to make those programs designed to sniff through your cookies to find that good ole’ username and password for their own ventures.
4. Never input private information (Real name, address, credit card info) into a site where there is no security lock present.
   • Eg. - or
5. Never give out your usernames and/or passwords to anyone.
   • When talking to people in chat rooms also be careful not to give anyone your real name or any revealing information.
6. Try not to use the same username and passwords for every login you have
   • It is much safer to use one username and password for you Online Banking, another username and password for your E-mail, another username and password for you myspace login and so on.
   • Using different usernames and passwords for your Online Accounts prevents hackers from possibly getting one username and password and logging in to all your accounts with that one username and password
   • The presence of dedicated servers in a web hosting deal ensure the safety of your domain registration as well as the uploaded status of web site design.
7. Never download anything that you haven’t researched first
   • Downloading something you know nothing about is a very serious risk to your computer. Make sure to do a quick Google search on any program you plan on downloading to see what other people have to say about it first.
8. When downloading and installing programs, don’t just install everything it tells you to in the installation.
   • Be sure NOT to install anything you may not want (such as yahoo toolbars, google toolbars, etc.) because they could come with unwanted adware or spyware that can be very annoying and possibly hazardous to your computer.
9. Always clear you Browsing History when finished surfing the web.
   • Delete cookies, history, temp files, form data, and passwords
     Firefox has a great feature where it can ask you to clear you Browsing History every time you close the browser.
10. Last but definitely not least, NEVER MAKE ARRANGEMENTS TO MEET ANYONE (in person) WHOM YOU MET IN A CHAT ROOM, MYSPACE, ETC.
    • This is very important for your own safety. Especially if you are under 18, but I personally don’t recommend anyone of any age to perform this type of arrangement. The only instance where I see that this may be appropriate is where you join an online dating community and you want to meet someone you met through the community. I have never been a part of any of these communities but I know that most of them are pretty strict about protecting their users, but by all means BE CAREFUL.
    • Parents please pay close attention to your children’s relationships with the people they meet on communities such as Myspace. From kids running away to be with people they met on the popular online communities, to pranks going too far and resulting in suicides, it all happens on Myspace and other popular online communities. Of course it is not the communities’ faults, but the careless people that your children could be associated with within the community is by far to blame.

The best way to keep your computer protected from viruses is to have…

· Anti-Virus

· Anti-Spyware

· Firewall

Having an anti-virus program installed and running on your PC is by far one the best virus prevention techniques. An anti-virus program constantly scans and monitors your computer for any suspicious files or activity. You can also schedule automatic system scans to automate your system security. Norton Anti-Virus and McAfee Anti-Virus are two great virus protection programs and they cost anywhere between $40 and $60. Avast develops a free anti-virus for home users and it is great virus protection for the budget shopper. Make sure to always have the anti-virus program running for complete protection.

Having a great firewall installed is another must have against virus protection. A firewall monitors all incoming internet traffic for suspicious or unknown activity.
Beginning with Windows XP (SP2) Microsoft began to provide a great built-in firewall.

Some manufacturers such as Norton and McAfee have developed Internet Security Suites which include the Anti-Virus, Firewall, and Anti-Spyware all in one program. It’s great to purchase a full Internet Security Suite because it can be a little easier to manage, but their are some pocket friendly programs such as Avast Anti-Virus and AVG Anti-Virus which both provide free home edition anti-virus programs. They don’t come equipped with firewalls unless you purchase the Internet Security Suite, but if you have Windows XP Service Pack 2 or higher then you already have a great firewall (see Windows XP Firewall Tutorial). all three programs work better together when there by the same manufacture, and it’s also easier to manage the different entities.

Spyware is classified as a program which is downloaded usually along with another program, that actually installs software which monitors and collects information for marketing research. Malicious spyware can be written and dispatch to computers to record information such as usernames, credit card numbers, passwords, etc. The program then sends all the information it collects back to the author.

Most spyware is not meant to be malicious, its usually used to gather marketing information, but some spyware is indeed created for purposes such as identity theft.

A great FREE tool that can be used to “Search and destroy” spyware is Spybot Search & Destroy.

Adware delivers unwanted advertising displays to your web browser window. In other words Adware programs initiate those annoying pop-ups on punching the monkey to win $1000 while you’re surfing the web. Adware is usually introduced to your computer through internet downloads such as freeware (free software). Before you go calling your lawyer to sue the publisher of that free game you downloaded, take another look and the EULA (End User License Agreement) in which you probably agreed to before you proceeded with the download. Yes you actually agree to download the bundled in adware.

Luckily adware generally doesn’t harm your system, rather it just tests your patience a little by providing loads of unsolicited advertising to your system.

A computer virus is a destructive program or application designed to replicate and spread throughout the computer on its on. Computer viruses can be contracted through opening e-mail attachments containing viruses, downloading infected programs from the internet (usually free programs), or from removable storage devices such as floppies, usb drives, etc. Make sure to only download stuff from reliable sources you trust. There are a few different types of viruses…

• Trojan Horses – these viruses pose as legitimate programs but are far from such. These viruses are usually designed to destroy data and can cause damage to hard disks. In modern terms Trojan Horses are not classified as viruses because they do not replicate or attach to other files, they work alone. They seem to be and work as the described application but they contain malicious code that gathers and records information by monitoring network behaviors.
• Computer Worms – these viruses are malicious programs the destroy the local computer by replicating until the disk space, memory, and other system resources have been consumed. These viruses are usually contracted through e-mail attachments the contain the virus.

• File Infectors – these are viruses that add their code to executable files such as word processor programs, spreadsheet apps, etc. After executing the file which contains the virus it then spreads to other executable programs causing havoc in the system.

• There are many more types but those are the main ones.

Some common symptoms of a computer who’s been compromised by malicious program(s) are as follows…

· System operations slows down greatly

· Hard Disk seems to be full even after files have been deleted

· The computer will not boot and files (such as the mbr) are corrupted

· The system will not boot to the HDD (Hard Disk Drive)

· File sizes change which you didn’t initiate

· Systems crashes

And many more…