My next Luddite question:

Thank you, DrewDad. A response at last!

You don't find that at times they rather fight with Windows updates & your choice of internet security? (Mine is Trend)

I never used those programs for my own computer. I prefer not to let the stuff in that to try to clean it up. But in the past I used them a lot to help others. Thing is, with the much more secure browsers these days I haven't even had to do that in years.

Thanks for that, Robert. You know, I had a hunch (in my Luddite kind of way) that this might now be the case. But it's very reassuring to to hear it from another source. Makes life a lot simpler, too!

Folks are less likely to get malware via malicious websites, but browser security doesn't stop people from installing yuckware themselves.

Msolga, as long as you aren't installing software from disreputable sources, then you can probably get by without a malware cleaner. If you do download the occasional "funny video," screensaver, game, "download accelerator," etc. then you should probably run a scan once in a while.

Thanks, DrewDad.
Thankfully I'm not downloading any of those varities of software.

I'd be grateful if someone in the know could explain what's happening here & why:

While online this morning, a blue screen appeared with this message:

"A problem has been detected & Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.
The problem seems to be caused by the following file: s (something, something, something).
The device drive got stuck in a continuous loop ...." etc, etc, etc ...

This has (recently) happened a few times now. I don't know whether to be concerned or not, but it's pretty annoying. Things are fine after I log onto the internet again ...

(In case this has anything to do with the problem: A few weeks ago a received a Trend (anti-virus) update from my usual source (my computer tech - paid for as usual), though I've received a couple of email messages from Trend bribing me to update as there's no record of me having done so. (?) And I have a legit (bought & paid for) copy of Windows XP.)

Any idea of what's going on here?

Thanks,
Olga

A quick one, if I may:

What exactly does it mean if my new security informs me that my internet address may be "spoofed"? (I realize that most likely isn't good news. )

But what does it mean & without going into too much detail, what should I do about it?

I alreadyhave had reports of a couple of "blocked" attacks today & some of you will know that that my computer has been problematic recently. This last attack apparently was not able to be blocked. Hmmmmm...

Based on your description, all I can tell you is that your computer is having a serious enough problem to crash repeatedly. But it looks like I'm pretty late responding so I'll leave it at that unless it's still a problem for you and move on to your next question.

What "new security" and what does it say exactly? We can research what it is if you give us something more specific, or we might even recognize it. But all I can do now is guess that somewhere you saw a message about IP spoofing.



You should write down the specific message, and let us know exactly what program is giving you this message. That way we can give you answers.



Blocked by what? There are literally millions of things going on in your computer, we really do need more specifics to help unless we are lucky enough to guess what it is.

Robert

I currently have Kaspersky Internet Security (2009) for a 30 day trial. (Any thoughts on that?) I've had it for about a week now.

The last apparent "threat"(described in my earlier post) happened today. I had also previously received "warning" information (via Kaspersky) about vulnerabilities to Java (Sun) I have since updated Java.

Prior to this, Trend security (which was updated by my previous tech help), appeared to have been compromised recently, as I was receiving unauthorized messages from "Trend" & there were other related problems.

I have relied on advice from a new, local (established - 20 years business experience in the community) tech help, since learning that email & password information from my previous tech help was compromised (by a now-sacked employee - clients' usernames & password information was passed on to to god knows where! Charming. (Some sort of serious legal action has taken place, I understand.)

So there you have it. I'm unsure of where to go from here. Remove everthing & start again from scratch?

Allthough I don't know specifics of what is going on... I can tell you that Kaspersky is very good and uses a lot less overhead than Norton. I have been using Kaspersky for over a year with excellent results.

I would think that Kaspersky is notifiying you of a change to Java since it is updated. Any time something changes in a program etc., Kaspersky lets you know and you usually have to confirm that a change has taken place when Kaspersky notifies you.

I don't have much experience with Kaspersky, but I do recommend that you get off your free trial and on to a permanent AV solution, whether that means paying for Kaspersky or another AV product or using a free one like AVG.

I personally tend to use the corporate Norton AV when I can, but honestly as long as you do a few other things (which I will explain) then it really doesn't matter that much.

Ok, now on to whether you should start from scratch again or not. This depends on a couple of things:

1) Do you want to go through the effort of cleaning your computer without formatting? If you have a lot of things on it, and don't mind the trial and error and multiple steps you'll need to take to fix it then by all means do so. But it can also be easier to start from scratch.

2) Do you have a legitimate install disc for Windows? Do you have a disc with your computers drivers? With these two things a fresh install is usually very straightforward.

Anywho, you'll have to make your own decision on that, but I can try to help with either that you decide. Now on to how to keep your computer safe:

1) Do not use your computer with an administrator account. Password protect the admin account and use a separate user account for your day-to-day use.

This one step eliminates almost all security risks. I personally would be comfortable with no AV software, no firewall or anything else but a patched Windows install running a non-admin account.

When you want to install things, you'll have to log in to your password protected admin account, and that can be annoying, but at least you won't have stuff you don't want installed on your computer.

2) Make sure your operating system is set up to receive updates and install them automatically. Unless your software or operating system has a bug that allows people to gain control of your computer, it is pretty darn safe. But bugs in various software are discovered weekly, and several times a year there's a critical one that has the possibility of compromising your computer. If you have automatic updates you are protected from all but zero-day attacks (the ones where the bad guys discover the bug, normally the way it works is the good guys do, fix it and publish the details and months later bad guys use it to get into computers that are not being updated with patches).

3) Make sure you have AV software that is set up to receive automatic updates as well.

4) Don't download and install stuff. No matter how secure your computer is, if you let one piece of malware in it can ruin it all. Remember, a "secure" computer basically just means they can't get their code to run on your computer without you doing it yourself. Thing is, many people do just that, and install this toolbar and that gadget and bundled among that free software is often malware.

Take these few simple steps, and you should not have no security problems on your computer.

Thanks very much, Robert. Much appreciated.

Thanks, Intrepid.