#Lifehacker best antivirus drivers#
Windows has a Safe Mode that boots a minimal version of the operating system, with generic drivers and nothing else. Use a lightweight scanner inside Safe Mode Linux is your best bet, but before you jump to that option, try booting into Windows Safe Mode to see if you can outflank your virus infestation there. It must be capable of detecting and removing malware from your PC, and you need to run it in an environment where the malware can’t load first. You need a fresh malware scanner-one that’s not already installed on your computer. More often than not it’s a rogue program, fear-mongering malware that tries to scare you into giving up your private info by issuing doomsday warnings of imminent hard drive failure, catastrophic viral infection, or worse.
Never fork over your credit card information or other personal data to a program or website that tries to warn you that your PC is about to die. If a program you don’t recognize suddenly pops up and starts displaying dire warnings and asks you to run an executable file or asks for your credit card number, your PC is definitely infected with some nasty malware.
#Lifehacker best antivirus install#
AVG Fake warnings like this one try to scare you into running a file to ‘remove malware’ (read: install malware) or giving up your credit card information to pay for bogus antivirus software. If your antivirus program suddenly stops loading, that’s a huge red flag. If your PC suddenly won’t load utilities that might help you manually remove malware-such as msconfig or regedit-be suspicious. Truly insidious malware will preemptively block you from trying to remove it. That said, you’d be surprised how often a piece of malware gives itself away with a line of strange characters or symbols where the process description should be. Of course, this is only general guidance there’s nothing to stop a piece of malware from masquerading as a legitimate process by sporting an inoffensive description. The odd-looking “wuauclt” process is fine, for example, because it belongs to Microsoft (it’s actually part of the Windows Update service, as you can tell from the description.)
Open the Processes tab, and check for any strange or unknown applications running in the background-especially those with nonsensical names and no recognizable authority listed in the description.
But before you decide that a virus must be responsible, take a moment to launch the Windows Task Manager (right-click the Windows taskbar, and select Task Manager from the pop-up menu). If your PC is unusually slow, or if it seems to do a lot of things on its own that you haven’t asked it to do, you have reason to be suspicious.
0 kommentar(er)
