General Computer Questions, Etc.

[theDerangedArchitect]

i'm fairly certain the m.yahoo thing is normal. mine is the same way. this computer i'm using is only a week or two old, and i'm (pretty) certain that i haven't picked up any viruses.

i don't know what a big fish game is, but if you think that is the problem, you have two options.

1. let your mother keep playing them. eventually, your computer will have an aneurysm and die. your mother will be unable to play big fish games.
2. cut your mother off from big fish games. you will still be able to use your computer. your mother will be unable to play big fish games.

as for viruses, they are notoriously tenacious. unless you have your HD wiped, i don't think you can completely remove them. utilizing more than one virus program might be advantageous, as well as installing a program called 'rogue remover', which can be found for free. i was having problems with my computer back in the day, and i used rogue remover. it didnt cure my computer, but at least it was something.

finally: i dont know you, and i dont really care to know your porn habits. but many viruses bypass the antivirus software because they attach themselves to JPG files. norton and zone alarm are not going to pick up on these, because the user has consciously accepted the virus into the computer. they're called 'trojan' viruses for a reason. seeing a picture on a website is like the citizens of troy looking out at the trojan horse. but as soon as you save that jpg to your hd--bring the horse into the city--well, we all know what happens then.

best of luck with your computer.

[Thorne]

Just a few notes that might help you out.

Download SpyBot Search & Destroy, from Safer Networking. It's free and I've found it to be very helpful. When installing, allow it to turn on Tea Timer. This starts up with your computer and runs in the background, notifying you of any changes to your registry. It can stop a virus from doing any further harm. There is also an add-on for Internet Explorer that can help. One feature that might prove useful is to have Spybot run at boot-up, hopefully catching the problems before they can run. It's pretty good for a free product.

Another one I've found helpful is something called Malwarebytes, another free program. Easy to use and fairly extensive. Regular updates, several times a week.

Good luck! I know it can be a real pain to take care of this crap.

[Midnytedreams]

It sounds like you have a FAT virus , once a virus gets into the FAT {file allocation table}
it replicates and stays there most virus programs don't scan the FAT as it isn't the files on your computer but the way the files are seen and used, one byte of information corrupted and the computer can't recognize the file, the file is clean, but the way its read and processed isn't, I personally don't use any of the virus programs offered but use one from my internet provider that scans data before it even is seen by my computer.
Bigfish it is freeware has a warning on there site that they are not responsible because anyone can download and upload games to it

Back up your files, run the best virus scan and prepare to reload windows, you will have to scrub it completely clean...run the fdisk program in windows from bootup, and delete the FAT completely then build another and format the HD ... then reload windows...restore will not set the FAT back only the files.

[Thorne]

Another resource you can use is the Norton (or McAfee) website. They have detailed instructions for removing viruses. Most involve editing the registry, which can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. Run your scans and, if you do find a virus, check it out on the antivirus websites to see if it can be removed completely.