Slow Internet, or Slow Computer?

    Is your internet connection unusually slow? Guess what? You don't need fancy software, or quick-fix gimmicks and chances are good that some basic maintenance will go a long way towards improving your web surfing experience.
1.) Regular Maintenance: a regularly scheduled defrag and virus scan can truly help speed up your connection. Often, the only sign that a computer is infected with viruses and spyware is the speed at which it connects to the net.
2.) Encryption: If you are running a wireless network, it is always a good idea to use encryption to block uninvited guests from hogging your bandwidth. There's nothing more annoying than somebody piggybacking off your signal because they are too cheap to pay for internet.
3.) Upgrade Your Equipment: Although your trusty modem has served you well for the past few years, it may very well be outdated and not well suited to keeping up with all of the latest online content. Also, it may be time to add more RAM to your computer, or upgrade the hard drive.
4.) Check With Your Service Provider: These days the emphasis is focused almost exclusively on speed, so much so that your service provider most likely offers several different packages all based on different speed levels.

Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware

This is the scenario: You are online and suddenly an "official looking" pop-up tells you that your computer is rife with malware, your identity is potentially compromised, and your system is about to fail, but if you spend $19.99 we can make it all go away... I hate malware, and I hate malware that bilks you out of your hard-earned money even more than I hate an early morning jog in January. (I hate running, in case you're a bit slow) Luckily, you needn't spend a penny to get rid of this issue, no need to make an appointment with the squad at Best Buy, you don't even have to call cousin Cletus who is "good with them thar computers". Our friends over at howtogeek.com have put together a spot-on article with excellent tips on how to eradicate this type of pest: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/43090/heres-a-super-simple-trick-to-defeating-fake-anti-virus-malware/

Here's the article for your reading pleasure:

So what’s the problem? Can’t you just run a anti-virus scan? Well… it’s not quite that simple. What actually happens is that these pieces of malware block you from running almost anything on your PC, and often prevent you from running apps from a Flash drive, with an error like this:

Once you encounter this error, there’s a couple things you can do. The first one is almost stupidly simple, and works some of the time:

Move the Dialog, and Try Again!

Yeah, that’s right—reader Robert wrote in to tell us that you can often just move that error to the side of the screen, and then try to run your anti-malware or anti-spyware application again. Turns out that some of the errors will only run once… and then you can get your favorite application running.

If that doesn’t work, then here’s the next great tip…

Rename Your Anti-Malware App to Explorer.exe

Since most of the fake anti-virus malware needs you to be able to slightly use your PC, the one executable that it won’t ever block is “explorer.exe”, since they want you to be able to get online and go to their site and pay them—not so easy if you have no Start Menu.

So just rename your favorite anti-malware application to explorer.exe, and you should be able to use it.

Thanks to reader Jeffrey for writing in with this tip.

General Guide to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Infections

There’s a couple of steps that you can generally follow to get rid of the majority of rogue antivirus infections, and actually most malware or spyware infections of any type. Here’s the quick steps:

• Try to use the free, portable version of SUPERAntiSpyware to remove the viruses.
• If that doesn’t work, reboot your PC into safe mode with networking (use F8 right before Windows starts to load)
• Try to use the free, portable version of SUPERAntiSpyware to remove the viruses.
• Reboot your PC and go back into safe mode with networking.
• If that doesn’t work, and safe mode is blocked, try running ComboFix. Note that I’ve not yet had to resort to this, but some of our readers have.
• Install MalwareBytes and run it, doing a full system scan. (see our previous article on how to use it).
• Reboot your PC again, and run a full scan using your normal Antivirus application (werecommend Microsoft Security Essentials).
• At this point your PC is usually clean.

These steps generally work.

Can’t Even Boot Anymore? Here’s Your Solution

All you have to do is use a repair disk from one of the anti-virus manufacturers, who have each created downloadable ISO images that you can burn to a CD, or install onto a USB flash drive. Boot from it, run a scan, and then your PC will be clean.

• How to Use the BitDefender Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC
• How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC
• How to Use the Kaspersky Rescue Disk to Clean Your Infected PC

We prefer using the BitDefender CD, since it’s automated and simple, but it couldn’t hurt to use more than one if necessary… so why not combine a bunch of recovery tools together? Here’s how:

How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk

A few useful (and free!) tools to keep you up and running.

CCleaner is a powerful, free computer maintenance tool that will keep your PC from the annoying buildup of crud that eventually slows the performance of all computers to unacceptable levels. With it's simple, user-friendly interface, it makes maintenance as painless as possible, and as a side note, I use this almost daily and swear by it! Download CCleaner here

Advanced Windows Care: Quite similar in execution to CCleaner, this utility delves even further into regular maintenance tasks like simple defragmentation, and scans for malware. I use this in conjunction with CCleaner and it is quite effective. Download it here:

Revo Uninstaller is an incredible tool I stumbled across that, in essence, does exactly what the title implies: it removes stuff. It also prevents the data bottleneck that occurs every time you start your computer and multiple programs are scrambling to start at the same time. Do you have enough time to brew a pot of coffee before you are actually able to get online? Now, you don't need to waste time booting up. Revo Uninstaller Free

While there are many different anti-virus solutions out there that don't require a fee, my favorite, especially since it is so unobtrusive, and doesn't over-burden older systems is AVG Anti-virus. What you get is basically the same level of protection that Norton or Macafee would provide, without the subscription service hassle. AVG Free Anti-virus