General Chat

Hi to you both and thanks for help and advice over the past few weeks. I have now at last managed to install Ad-aware but only by having it emailed to me. It picked up 85 objects which spy bot did not and I now have access to my internet options again. Question... now that I have ad-aware and AVG, do I need to keep spy-bot or will this do different jobs? Many thanks, Jacky :-)

Hi Colin or Judy, If you happen to look in again. I have adaware and it is fantastic .I no longer get pop ups. unwanted email or other junk, and it certainly takes care of the spyware. I also had Norton 2004, which gave me problems with access to some websites, notably freebmd. Was given instructions to solve the problem, but never used them as son upgraded me to XP from 98, and I couldn't reinstall Norton, nor could anyone else. Wrote to Symantec and pcadvisor, and got reply from latter first. A gentleman advised me to forget norton. It seems a lot of people have problems with it. He advised me to Install free Avast or AVG. I still hadn't heard from Symantec so chose to use Avast. A few days later I heard from Symantec, with some very involved instructions. What do you think of Avast? It seems to be doing okay, but does it do an adequate job? I prefer to us it rather than mess about any further with Norton, but I do want good protection. We have 3 computers on one source, in this house. Don't know how it works, but my son says I don't need a firewall as there's one in the works upstairs. So, any opinions please? Apologies for jumping in on your thread, Jacky. Thanks, Di.

Jackie: Glad to hear that you're back up and running! As for Spybot, I, personally, would delete it. It adds its own spyware to your computer, that obviously, Adaware picked up. Just about anything offered on the internet has spyware attached to it so it's a good idea to run Adaware anytime you download. Di: Norton Anti Virus was not the cause of your not being able to access websites, Norton Firewall was. They are two completely different animals. One is a virus protector, the other, the firewall, prevents hackers from accessing your computer. You could have left the Norton Anti Virus intact and just deleted the Firewall. The other reason you may not be able to access sites, such as BMD, has to do with a setting in your computer that should be changed. You may not be able to access other sites and not realize it thinking that the site is either busy or not available. Change the following: Fixing “Website Can’t Be Found” and other Site Error Messages More than likely you have trouble with accessing quite a few sites.....particularly getting the message "website can't be found" among a few other error messages. Try the following and it should solve your problem. 1. Go to START. 2. Click on CONTROL PANEL. 3. Click on INTERNET OPTIONS. 4 A box appears with tabs labeled across the top. Click on ADVANCED. 5. Scroll down to the sub-heading SECURITY. 6. Make sure the following has check marks next to it: Use USE SSL 2.0, USE SSL 3.0 and USE TLS 1.0. 7. Also make sure you check off EMPTY TEMPORARY INTERNET FILE WHEN BROWSER IS CLOSED. Repeat above steps 1 through 4. When the box appears, change NUMBER OF DAYS TO KEEP HISTORY to 0 and click APPLY & OK. On this page, you would also delete cookies and temporary internet files but it doesn't delete everything. I have step by steps directions, if needed, to empty thoroughly. More than likely USE TLS 1.0 is not checked of and it should be. This will give you the error messages, as well as a few others, that will prevent you from viewing web sites and the error you are getting. As for the firewall your son says is protecting all three computers, this is true if the firewall is on the server that connects the three computers.....it's only protecting one computer if the firewall is installed on only one computer. I have no experience with AVAST so I can't comment on that program.. I found that AVG, for being a free program, works adequately. With any program though, make sure you keep up with updating virus definitions and scanning the computer. Judy:)

Di, Feel free to "jump in"! If this info helps others than that is good. I will be brave and uninstall Spy bot. If I have trouble afterwards I can always install again. Many thanks Colin and Judy. Just think... you could have both made a fortune on this site with 'Consultants' fees!! Jacky :-)

Thanks for all your help Judy. I'll check on the firewall when my son gets home, but I'm pretty sure he meant it's on the server that connects all 3 computers, so I should be covered now from all aspects, and i do scan and update regularly so think everything should be okay from now on. Thanks again, Di.