It is very naive of anyone to think that they will be free of viri so long as they do not frequent sleazy warez site. We have a machine that is used to run an outdoor sign... scrolls news headlines. It became infected with sircam not once but 3 times. considering this machine does not actually surf the net or even partake in email, it shows you that worms are smart (or worm writers). It even infects norton on the machine. the only way we could stop it is to upgrade away from win9x but the sign client will not run on NT, 2k or XP. Sircam isn't even a new breed of worm.

But usually, if you keep your anti-virus software up-to-date all the time, chances are pretty slim to catch a virus.

I just did a lot to my system and found out a few wierd things.

I used norton Anti virus...All clean
I used ad aware and it came back with 57 programs so I got rid of all them
Then I installed Sygate Personal firewall so I hope that helps to.

I read a lot of PC Magazines. In their tests, they say that there are viruses that even Norton, which was second best, missed.

Mcafee missed many viruses in their test. I tried getting the top rated program but, it isn't a commerical product. This program missed none of the viruses. And, the company didn't answer the telephone. Strange. So, I guess I'm stuck with second best.

I run Norton Internet Security Professional, Norton AV, Spybot search & destroy(a free program which is great for catching trojans and spyware). I've read many threads at Win Annoyances where people have been infected with worms, trojans and spyware that do most of what you are describing. There was a new one recently that was infecting a lot of people online. And, the new Spybot build came out two weeks later. Be careful because, nothing is free online. Especially those screensavers, they will infect you. Spybot search & destroy seems to be the best program for trojans, worms and spyware. And, its free.

Kona, a all clean doesn't mean much if your virus signatures aren't up to date. Once, I had a virus on my system and the virus scanner didn't detect it until I updated the signatures.

Also try, SpyBot Search & Destroy, it will get many things that Ad-aware missed, as well as registry orphans that Norton Utilities missed, I guarantee you, and it is free too.

I know my virus signatures are up to date... I just dl the new ones with the date 5/20/03 today.

20 by Mr ChasUGC - 5/20/2003 8:32:52 PM Kona, a all clean doesn't mean much if your virus signatures aren't up to date. Once, I had a virus on my system and the virus scanner didn't detect it until I updated the signatures

There are worms out there (like one that I had) that are not detected by Norton and will actually infect Norton (they take over the auto-update function.)  Here is an example of the type of worm I am referring to:  http://vil.mcafee.com/dispVirus.asp?virus_k=100143

No email or warez sites needed to get infected with that puppy.

Hum. I have never been infected by any virus nor worm. I've always caught them.
On the other hand, I'm constantly fixing other people's computer frpom virii at work because they don't update their virus signatures.

I'm not saying it can't happen, obviously it did to you, Angie. But generally speaking, if you keep your antivirus up to date at all times, you should be safe. While if you don't, you have almost 100% chances of getting infected.

I had Norton up to date and still got it.  Mcafee picked it up right away and got rid of it.  No virus protection is 100% reliable.

However, worms are not that destructive, typically.  They just spread like crazy and will bring your system to a crawl.  A lot will install a backdoor, however, which will create a security breach.  They also spread through shared drives, so they are a bit trickier to detect.  Once the worm was found and extracted, everything was fine and dandy on my machine.  Just took a couple hours of cursing before it was all happy again.

It never hurts to scan with a different virus scanner if there is a question of infection.

i can't believe eeryone is using Norton, tis too much bloat. for a good anti-virus go with Grisoft AVG, free and unobtrusive.

also free is Kerio Personal Firewall, written by a group of guys who used to work on Zone Alarm. Kerio is smaller and more secure than ZA.

wickid cool.

Kerio is good but since it's a rules based firewall the user should learn about how to set up rules to secure their pc and not go with just the default configuration. Not as simple as Zone Alarm but a good learning experience for those who are so inclined. (Also, the Kerio people used to be associated with the old Tiny Personal Firewall. Not associated with ZA as far as I know. I recall when the split happened with Tiny and some of the Tiny developers released Kerio.)

Isn't ZA also rules based? The worst thing about ZA is the install which can bork leaving you with no interweb. very nasty.

was it tiny the people at keiro defected from... probably. my brain is hazzy