I'm not a fan of sharing either. No idea how some people are fine with sharing their PC with their family or flatmates.
Antivirus?
- Thread starter Dawelio
- Start date
I'm not a fan of sharing either. No idea how some people are fine with sharing their PC with their family or flatmates.
Wraith
Bettyswollocks
Aye no ways, I set up my stepdads RIG it was working perfect and smooth but within a week it was slowed to crawl and so slow it made 486s appear super fast. All down to click bait ads and pop ups he just can't help but click on. Main culprit was "Driverfixer" which was a mine field of malware.
BonkersMental
New member
I use Kaspersky Internet Security: Full Program ( i get a FREE years Sub every year because i Bank Online with Barclays 
) and i use MBam
) and i use MBam
AlienALX
Well-known member
The only time lately I have been caught out was about three days ago. Thing is, this was far more cunning than anything I had seen before.
I've done some reading and it appears it can happen for two reasons.
1. Your Talktalk account was hacked back in December and your info leaked.
2. It's some sort of security flaw with Ebay.
Any way, about midnight the other night I was winding down and powering all of my rigs down to watch some TV and take my sleeping pills. The last thing I do before bed is grab my Oppo phone and close all of the recent notifications to stop it flashing the skyline bar all night (which wakes up my lady it's that bright). Any how, I noticed this email with my mother's full name in the title. When I opened it they basically said they were "law abiding citizens" /roll eyes and that they had managed to get all of my mother's details. Well, they thought they were sending it to her, thankfully she doesn't get the emails on the account I do.
So it basically laid out her full birth name, birth date and address saying they had obtained her info from a leak but "weren't blackmailers honest". They attached a .doc file explaining that they had included all of the info they had in the document file.
I figured it was some sort of blackmail attempt (Nigerian written all over it) so like a pillock I opened the file in Word. It tried to launch some sort of script, but Windows Defender caught it in time and deleted it.
That's probably been about the closest I have been to getting a virus/encryption attack in recent years. And it was only because they did actually have real personal information.
First thing I did the very next day was go over to my mother's house and sign her up for Sky Fibre. I've kind of neglected my mum's stuff since being married and ended up getting her 40mb fibre with free 24/7 calls to all landlines, mobiles and 0870 for the same price she was paying for 8mb on Talktalk with no mobiles, 0845, 0835 or 0870.
So all's well that ends well I suppose. I guess if anything it was a kick up my ass to get her up to speed. She had been on Talktalk for seven years.
I've done some reading and it appears it can happen for two reasons.
1. Your Talktalk account was hacked back in December and your info leaked.
2. It's some sort of security flaw with Ebay.
Any way, about midnight the other night I was winding down and powering all of my rigs down to watch some TV and take my sleeping pills. The last thing I do before bed is grab my Oppo phone and close all of the recent notifications to stop it flashing the skyline bar all night (which wakes up my lady it's that bright). Any how, I noticed this email with my mother's full name in the title. When I opened it they basically said they were "law abiding citizens" /roll eyes and that they had managed to get all of my mother's details. Well, they thought they were sending it to her, thankfully she doesn't get the emails on the account I do.
So it basically laid out her full birth name, birth date and address saying they had obtained her info from a leak but "weren't blackmailers honest". They attached a .doc file explaining that they had included all of the info they had in the document file.
I figured it was some sort of blackmail attempt (Nigerian written all over it) so like a pillock I opened the file in Word. It tried to launch some sort of script, but Windows Defender caught it in time and deleted it.
That's probably been about the closest I have been to getting a virus/encryption attack in recent years. And it was only because they did actually have real personal information.
First thing I did the very next day was go over to my mother's house and sign her up for Sky Fibre. I've kind of neglected my mum's stuff since being married and ended up getting her 40mb fibre with free 24/7 calls to all landlines, mobiles and 0870 for the same price she was paying for 8mb on Talktalk with no mobiles, 0845, 0835 or 0870.
So all's well that ends well I suppose. I guess if anything it was a kick up my ass to get her up to speed. She had been on Talktalk for seven years.
AlienALX
Well-known member
Yup since making the switch to Ubuntu I find less and less time for Windows. On it now as it goes (Ubuntu) as none of the footy streams I watch work on any Windows PC in this flat. Very strange.
Once I get my NAS firing and have all of my music to hand I will probably only use Windows for gaming.
RobM
Active member
Have you tried Manjaro XFCE? I started on that as total noob and find I am reluctant to try anything else.
Gaming is the only thing I boot windows for, and then thats only for the games that wont run on lunix steam
AlienALX
Well-known member
Nope never used it. Thankfully over the years I've picked up a bit of Linux, Unix and OSX that most of it is quite easy. Plus I was big into DOS, so I'm not really scared off by the terminal.
TBH unless you have both arms missing and can't type then there is no reason why you should not have installed Linux. Anything you ever need to know is just a Google away. So even if you don't want to learn it properly you can just get exactly what you need through Google.
First install I ever did was back in 1998. Can't remember the name now, but yeah, was into it back then (I always loved OSX even the older ones and Linux could be made to look exactly the same even then).
In 2002 I bought Quake III Linux only. Man, getting that to run was a steep old learning curve ! IIRC it took me about forty hours just to make it run and stop crashing before it started. Ed. That was on Suse, which I bought from Best Buy for $20 with a manual that looked like a telephone directory
It's never felt entirely comfortable for me though like say OSX. This latest Ubuntu is fantastic though. I've even managed to get the HDMI audio working from my GTX 950 so I can switch sound devices like I do in Windows etc. It's definitely come a bloody long way !
TBH unless you have both arms missing and can't type then there is no reason why you should not have installed Linux. Anything you ever need to know is just a Google away. So even if you don't want to learn it properly you can just get exactly what you need through Google.
First install I ever did was back in 1998. Can't remember the name now, but yeah, was into it back then (I always loved OSX even the older ones and Linux could be made to look exactly the same even then).
In 2002 I bought Quake III Linux only. Man, getting that to run was a steep old learning curve ! IIRC it took me about forty hours just to make it run and stop crashing before it started. Ed. That was on Suse, which I bought from Best Buy for $20 with a manual that looked like a telephone directory
It's never felt entirely comfortable for me though like say OSX. This latest Ubuntu is fantastic though. I've even managed to get the HDMI audio working from my GTX 950 so I can switch sound devices like I do in Windows etc. It's definitely come a bloody long way !
RobM
Active member
It has indeed come a long way, I first looked linux some 15 years ago think it may have been red hat but not sure, my thoughts on it then were who its way to much work just to get things up an running, even for someone IT savvy. Take a look now days it has really come along way and much more user friendly these day although I still prefer this arch based one. I really need to give ubuntu a drive out as I hear many good things about it.
AlienALX
Well-known member
A mate of mine introduced me to it when I was working at the PC shop. I always forget the name of it, but it had Pacman that you played whilst it installed which was just way cool lol. After twenty minutes of digging I have IDed it, Caldera. That was the first one I ever installed. Since then I've done Suse, Mint, Ubuntu (on a G4 Laptop) and a few others. Ubuntu is usually the best Windows replacement though as it's relatively easy to install and very well documented for when you need to pull things down via the terminal (drivers etc).
This latest Ubuntu though is just far better than Windows. Getting Steam on was a pain, because I first had to install the Nvidia driver or else it refused to load. And that was a chore too, given it's only really available through the terminal. Nothing Google couldn't throw up for me though.
This latest Ubuntu though is just far better than Windows. Getting Steam on was a pain, because I first had to install the Nvidia driver or else it refused to load. And that was a chore too, given it's only really available through the terminal. Nothing Google couldn't throw up for me though.
Dawelio
Active member
What does this mean really?... What kind of back ups?.
NickOmega
Member
I assume he means a full back-up on a drive not normally connected to your computer, such as an external drive.
Thelosouvlakia
Classy-Fried-Chicken
Ransomware is software that gets installed on your PC either as trojans or packed with other software from unknown sources and they encrypt ALL your files on every single disk/partition, then they ask for money to decrypt them, most of the times in the form of "MI5,FBI,Interpol" to scare you even worse and pay the "fine"
Most of the times data recovery might be possible with some decrypting tools but again... it's a huge risk having all the drives connected to the pc. Ideally you would have 1 HDD either an external drive or even a plain internal one that you would connect to the pc once a month and you would backup the most important stuff... Complete system images are also a solution but that would require more HDD space...
AlienALX
Well-known member
Ransomware is quite easily removed now IIRC. A couple of companies (Avast being one) make a bootable stick that removes it. But yeah, probably not a great idea to get it in the first place.
As for backups? I'll admit I am pretty slack, but I do have everything mirrored on two PCs on different drives (not RAID, I do it manually once a week).
Best thing to do is make an image of a fresh install with a clone proggy and then clone it back if you bugger up. Keeping the image away from the PC of course.
As for backups? I'll admit I am pretty slack, but I do have everything mirrored on two PCs on different drives (not RAID, I do it manually once a week).
Best thing to do is make an image of a fresh install with a clone proggy and then clone it back if you bugger up. Keeping the image away from the PC of course.
SPS
Moderator
AlienALX
Well-known member
Jesus, that shows how tired I am. Avast do not make a bootable stick that removes it. They provide the proggy, you have to make the boot stick.
Fluffing builder ringing my doorbell at 7:30 AM after I had a Walking Dead session until 3:30 AM and then took enough pills to take out a horse.
Thanks for that SPS. Thankfully I now know not to open anything, even if they have your full name etc.
Fluffing builder ringing my doorbell at 7:30 AM after I had a Walking Dead session until 3:30 AM and then took enough pills to take out a horse.
Thanks for that SPS. Thankfully I now know not to open anything, even if they have your full name etc.
Dawelio
Active member
Some scary Ransomware examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Dq5OJdvWU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZWDpX4207A
If you're not visiting "questionable sites" then you probably won't ever face any of this stuff but even free legit software could potentially come bundled with something dodgy. I had some Youtube downloader that came with a load of adware crap a while back.
This is why I back all my most important stuff on an external rather than using RAID.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Dq5OJdvWU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZWDpX4207A
If you're not visiting "questionable sites" then you probably won't ever face any of this stuff but even free legit software could potentially come bundled with something dodgy. I had some Youtube downloader that came with a load of adware crap a while back.
This is why I back all my most important stuff on an external rather than using RAID.
Dawelio
Active member
This is why I only visit sites that are well known and that have the https etc stuff that Chrome checks sites for legitimacy etc.
And I never click on dodgy links in emails etc... Lastly, I use 3rd party sites to download music from youtube videos, and haven't had an issue yet.
I never use plugins such as Youtube downloader directly in Chrome, cause have experienced loads of issues with it in the past.
