Protect your software

[lanxce]

Recently a friend of mine was hit by a deadly virus(we're both XP users)..
w32/Sality.h
the damn thing would infect all his executables. Program files, dead. His software folder was wacked too.
Some of his software however was compressed as zip and rar files. those ones survived.

Now whenever u get software..keep it in an archive winrar is a good tool to compress files.

[t2t2t]

Now whenever u get software..keep it in an archive winrar is a good tool to compress files.

This can be annoying on older machines... Maybe just keep backups of programs in an archive(s)?

[lanxce]

Like what kinda older machines?

[t2t2t]

Like a machine with 1,333 Ghz processor and 512 MB ram?
(I do have a newer machine now, but used to use it till last month)

Putting all programs into an archive just sounds too cautious.

[lanxce]

well i had that very attitude till i saw the devastation this virus left in its wake..mcAfee claimed to clean the files but unfortunately after the clean the file is damaged..imagine having your Adobe software failing to run and you go to your software folder hoping to re-install and it is also corrupted...
hell i tell u

[Spartan Erik]

When it comes to viruses like that there's nearly no point in wasting time salvaging.. reformatting can be quite fun at times.

I don't like the idea of putting all files into one RAR archive, but instead backing them up onto an external hard drive.. they're getting cheaper nowadays

[xPlozion]

and any good antivirus software should pick it up instantly (avg, kaspersky, nod32...), but mcaffe and norton are horrible av programs, and pickup very few viruses.

as spartan said, reformatting would be the way to go if a virus hit my system (and avg for some reason didn't pick it up), for a few reasons. 1, your system is faster once its reinstalled, because there's no errors in the registry, no corrupted system files, and you don't have to uninstall programs and reinstall them, just install them on a fresh install.

[GTKILLA]

Heh Norton sucks like a scam. All it detects is tracking cookies when the FREE software detects spyware and other things.........

[cenobite321]

I think it's best to download a basic antivirus like AVG and stay out of dubious websites and e-mails. Remember what the curiosity made to the cat

[Max1337]

When it comes to anti-viruses, I like Kaspersky the most.
Kaspersky is used at work, and it works great.
I used to have McAfee, but there were some viruses that got through, and McAfee didn't do anything about it :rant2:
McAfee has a decent firewall though, but their anti-virus isnt all that good lol.