Macstorm

I use and recommend Avira Premium. Happy New Year to All

My prof. tech mind along with Avira security suite (without the FW module) Happy New Year to All

Nevermind. PC's NIC is dead. Router connects fine using the ethernet cable with other laptop. thanks

Thanks Nerwin, i'm not sure if this issue would be related to the registry but you gave me a new light at least though. I'll try also restoring his system to a previous date just in case. Thanks for your response

Hey guys Help me to solve out my cousin's problem. His router is working ok on wireless signals for his other 2 laptops, no problems with them they are receiving internet connection ok. However, his 'wired' desktop pc has suddenly stopped communicating with the same router (through a regular network cable as always been). I've tried everything, connected to another 'port' (it's a 4-hub one), turned off/on hardware router & PC, unplugged/plugged network cable, 'inverted' its connection, changed a new one, updated mobo network drivers etc. I also performed maintenance routine cleaning registry, defragging disk, his computer is malware free btw. The line signal light does not come on on the router, no connection with the pc. any ideas

Huh? I'm back to the beginning then Thanks Jeremy, i'll try that as well. As for the start-up items don't worry, they are under control

Get serious. Buy KAV B)

Hi DigeratiPrime, Thanks a lot for the links, hope i can solve this annoying 'problem'.

Hi Folks, Windows XP Pro SP3 Adobe Acrobat Pro 7.1 I want to disable the info/details shown when you hover over any .pdf icon. I find this feature annoying because it triggers and executes four processes automatically in the system (2 instances of adobe_cleanup.0001, 1 adobelmsvc.exe and acrobat.exe). These processes start and run even if i´m not working with acrobat files when i accidentally hover over the .pdf icons placed on the desktop. Btw, I chose not to start Acrobat when i turn on my computer neither want those processes to auto-start in the background unless i´m working with acrobat files. Any ideas?

Hello Martin, You're welcome, thanks too for your reply I think it all depends on how careful you are while surfing the net and/or downloading suspicious files without check them first. When I 'tested' NOD32 I was playing around myself on the side of a "naive user whom download from internet just anything he finds there". In this scenario, I found out that other AVs can do a better job finding malware than nod32. Regards,

Huh ??? NOD32, Kaspersky, AntiVir and Norton/Symantec AV is among the very best when detection accuracy is concerned(AV Comparatives). I personally use NOD32 because of it's great detection rates, low memory footprint, unbloatedness, nice clean interface and as it dosen't bother you much and you just set it and forget it. I agree that NOD32 is rated as one of the 'best' AVs out there from reputed sources (specifically av-comparatives tests, which I strongly trust). First, I consider myself a medium-high risk surfer. In my experience, however, nod32 failed in detecting a lot of trojans hidden on files downloaded from internet. I double checked them before opening with an up-to-date nod32 and got often 'clean' results with it, then re-checked those files with other several online virus scanners and... surprise I must note I'm not talking about false positives, they were real malware that I always sent to eset for analysis but never got replied (I saw they added signatures for these about one week after!). Personally, I think they rely too much on its heuristics but at same time they are incredible slow releasing signature updates.

...but mediocre detection, at least in my experience

Hardware firewall for starters. It's not the best, but it's better than nothing. I'm on a wired connection, not wireless, so no wise-a** is going to crack through some "open access point". I have just my OS and Program Files on mY C: drive and everything else on D:. I use Opera and Ad Muncher so no ActiveX, Java, JavaScript or other scripting features are enabled and all the ads and banners are removed, not that I'd click on them if they did show up. I don't open unknown e-mails or attachments. I question file transfers from those on my MSN and if someone adds me and immediately tries to send me something, its kind of obvious what the intention is. I image my HDD and can easily restore if anything bad happened. But if I ever noticed someone who managed to hack through a router, I'd simply pull the ethernet cable out of the router. Give my setup, I'd love to see someone hack through air. The problem is most people feel that if they don't have loads of security suites installed that they will be infected. This is not the case. If you want to get infected, go out and get yourself infected. Accept those transfers, open those downloaded EXEs and ZIPs off LimeWire, open that attachment and click on that bouncing "you're our 999,999th customer, click here for your free laptop!" button. Hell, anyone ever heard of DeepFreeze and a ThawSpace? Reboot and everything's fine! Well I'm on a router firewall and yet observe most of your security tips all the time. However, I still feel the need of using the lighweight Avira AntiVir along with my precautionary measures. On the other side, I've read about DeepFreeze sometime ago. I don't know, too good to be true..

What then?

A combination of: -Ad-Aware -Spybot S&D -Spyware Blaster -My professional tech mind ...and Kaspersky AV of course

Thanks, I'll keep your suggestions for future use Happily I have not been infected then, since I didn't open that file, I just wanted to pointed out the fact (and a must) to scan every single file downloaded from internet by several AV scanners, before they are opened and/or executed. Kaspersky rules!

Done. Redownloaded malicious file and sent it to Eset & Avira. Btw, I've been browsing the web and have read many similar experiences from other users with nod32 just like mine. This trojan was detected by KL on Dec 17 2006...but Eset or Avira!!! (I was just about to switch to AntiVir)... I simply cannot accept this

I was testing NOD32 from two weeks back.......until today. Yes, it is light, speedy, low on resources but....NO WAY! Earlier today I downloaded a .rar file to my desktop which supossedly contains a ......(think it's against the forum rules so I won't give details, PM me for them) which is infected with 'Trojan.Win32.Autoit.ac' detected only by Authentium, CAT-QuickHeal, eSafe, Fortinet, F-Prot, F-Secure, Ikarus, Kaspersky, McAfee and VirusBuster (according to http://www.virustotal.com & http://virusscan.jotti.org/ ) The up to date NOD32 ignored the infected file but Kaspersky Virus File Scanner did the trick Now I'm back to KAV 6 and won't look to others anymore!

All of them... and the umbrella I agree, the GUI has nothing to do with effectiveness (nod32 the best example here, ugly GUI) but certainly I'd like they improve the current 'plain design' of Antivir and change it to, say, just like F-Secure, BitDefender and others..

I'm actually considering switching to this from Kaspersky. It has a higher detection rate and the GUI is very nice. The memory usage is fine, two services, responsive and detailed. It was actually fun taking screenshots of it compared to some other products I tried. I'm tempted to switch to Antivir as well but, honesty, I think its GUI is one of the worst that I have seen IMO

http://www.speedbandits.dk/

Found the culprit: WindowsLiveMessenger installs a new service 'Messenger Sharing USN Journal Reader' which messes up with the 'C:\$Extend\$UsnJrnl:$J' metadata system file. I've just disabled this WLM service.

Ok thanks, I guess I'll leave it alone for now

Thanks Kent, I asked this because I perform manual defrag routines quite often (every 5 days) with PerfectDisk. However, the point is that about 1 month back approx. I'm forced to make off-line defrags (after a system reboot) so Perfectdisk can arrange the metadata files which are managed by the system only. I noticed a permanent fragmentation of such system files since 1 month back. As I said, I never needed to defrag those files before, just had to make regular defrags without rebooting because metadata files never were a problem. The time when this issue first appeared coincides when I installed WindowsLiveMessenger8 and Opera9 softwares (I blamed them for the problem) so I uninstalled them temporarily for testing purposes but nothing changed and reinstalled them again. I think that 'something' somewhere into my files is causing the rapid fragmentation of 'metadata' files lately but don't know how to identify it

Hey guys, I hope you can help me here http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=83434