I see some people over on the Ethericwarriors forum have suffered from trojans.
I have some advice:
All US internet security software are compromised.
Windows software have built in backdoors
One solution is to use Kaspersky internet security
I have been attacked continually recently but found that switching to Kaspersky has been wonderful.
For instance, I uninstalled Picasa because it was acting suspiciously.
I was directed to an Internet Explorer webpage and Kaspersky instantly flagged up a warning that the webpage is wanting to extract all my passwords and gave me the option to block info passing out. Phew!
So it might be helpful if you put up a post to tell people to switch to Kaspersky.
From my experience Kaspersky is an Outstandingly good Anti Virus/Mal Ware program. I have also used Nod32 from Esset, an Australian company.
I completely agree that the majority of the US products, ESPECIALLY Norton Anti Virus (which is a piece of junk, even if it weren’t the NSA’s tool) are JUNK or worse.
Evidently antivirus-software is a classic case of a ‘you-need-to-be-protected’-scenario. I mean are we supposed to believe there are hords of ‘bad’ people that have nothing better to do with their time than writing virussoftware? If you’re that knowledgeable in computers, you probably would prefer making money with the time you spend behind the screen wouldn’t you. Save perhaps the occasional freak that gets a kick out of it…
Thank you Sophie and Atzi for your helpful advice.
It is obviously that my Pc needs a better protection, since it went down by a trojan. Some time ago I noticed two times that
a window opened with the text: " Another user is signed in", although there is no other user than me. Each time I saw that i immediately pulled the plug but thats not the best solution.
I am sure that there are a lot of people who are payed for doing things like that.
Linux is the solution [Image Can Not Be Found]
Antivirus or virus is a term that almost doesn’t exist there, since it’s open source and a flaw is found it is fixed and that’s it. Or you have to be really stupid to open an attachment and do as you are told http://www.geekzone.co.nz/foobar/6229
Why are most internet servers linux/unix based [Image Can Not Be Found] (actually, without user interface the system cannot be infected unless by using flaws in the operating system, which are often corrected/updated very quickly)
Give ubuntu or fedora a try, just get a free CD (or cd image and burn it) you can boot on it directly without installing, actually that’s the safest option because on CD boot the harddisk is virtual so nothing can be installed permanently, everything disappears everytime you shutdown.
Btw. that error: ‘another user is signed in’ is a cookie problem (if it happens with gmail or google accounts in general), actually the other user signed in is yourself not properly signed out… I have that often because I have 6 google accounts, when switching from one to another I often get that error.
In windows Norton is by far the worst! it doesn’t detect any trojan, or so it seems, I often had to sort out infected computers with norton antivirus installed, when I ran another free antivirus ‘avg free’, it detected often 50 to 200 trojans and threats, whereas NORTON detected nothing ever… Get rid of Norton if you have it and get Kaspersky, avg or eset nod, these 3 are approximately similar.
A) External hard drive… backup all of your data on one of these (especially if you go the linux route)
B) Linux requires a /little/ bit of computer knowledge, linux command lines are sort of a requirement to get the best experience with it, I’m a computer programmer so I don’t mind. Ubuntu I’ve used, I like it, free software for life, the problems come when trying to upgrade to the new version you risk losing all of your data, so a backup hard drive works nicely here. For important data, use multiple backups The other “issue” with it, is that it is very “buggy” compared to Windows / Mac, this is because Linux is written by hobbyists
C) I don’t trust most anti virus programs. A lot of them simply slow down the computer without much benefit. Here are some decent ones.
D) I wouldn’t necessarily trust macs, while they made the smart move by being based off of the BSD kernel and is a little more secure than windows, Apple has a tendency to put in Big Brother controls into the software, like the ability to turn an iPhone into a ‘brick’ remotely if you try to get past their controls.
E) I like to use firefox with the adblock plus firefox extension.
Kaspersky is very good antivirus and internet security software.
I would recommend it if AVG wasn’t free. AVG is my personal favorite. I’ve been able to trust them with my computers since 2002.
When I bought my laptop new in 2006 I went for nearly a month without AVG installed. The laptop came with
McAffee installed. If you are running Macaffee, you have problems. I’ll just guarantee it LOL
About a month after purchasing my laptop, I installed AVG on this pc and removed Macaffee… then ran the scan
with AVG… the result was 5002 trojans found and removed using AVG.
Basically, if your out of the box new PC has an antivirus or internet security suite of software installed and you don’t 1st change to a reputable antivirus/internet security suite- your security is already compromised.
I’ve lived with Kaspersky on a pc. Besides it not being free, i found it to be very irritating software.
With nearly everything I tried to do online being blocked or the process stopped waiting for me to click one of Kaspersky’s buttons.
Their security is great but I use AVG- the free one, and PC Tools firewall (another free piece of software)
in addition to the pre-installed mindows firewall.
If I ever buy a security suite, it would be AVG. They have earned my trust for nearly 10 years.
I wouldn’t fault anyone for choosing Kaspersky over AVG but I haven’t yet found anything wrong with AVG’s free antivirus software.
PC Tools makes a nice firewall that is free though at first it is nearly as irritating as Kaspersky.
I can do most anything without a popup security alert waiting for me to click a button now.
It learns what you allow and then doesn’t ask anymore.
Bottom line, monitor your internet activity. If you aren’t the one making activity and you haven’t told your pc to make the internet activity…
then disconnect your internet and run a full system scan Before powering off your PC.
Trusting all this software is great until the moment you don’t trust it anymore
I am fond of running Spybot Search and Destroy AND Superantispyware concurrently. The advantage Superantispyware has over AVG is that, while also being free, Superantispyware includes rootkit detection and removal as well as trogans, spyware (et al.) and free updates. Just my 2cents.
Also, consider running Eraser and Restoration to permanently delete files by overwriting them repeatedly so that they can not be recovered from your hard-drive.
bit of computer knowledge, linux command lines are sort of a requirement to get the best experience with it, I’m a computer programmer so I don’t mind. Ubuntu I’ve used, I like it, free software for life, the problems come when trying to upgrade to the new version you risk losing all of your data, so a backup hard drive works nicely here. For important data, use multiple backups 
The other “issue” with it, is that it is very “buggy” compared to Windows / Mac, this is because Linux is written by hobbyists 