[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Heads Up: Trojans and Viruses Are Out to Get You here

[MAcUser21]

well, I am happy that I use Mac :D

[MAcUser21]

oh yeah, Nuclear concrete wall must be extreme thick at 10 ft or more.

[STROBE]

Hey,Steve..because of the link to Fantastic Contraption I now have no life!I have grown roots on feet to the floor were my computer is and my hand is
permanately fixed to the mouse.!
What an amaxing game.!I dont know weather to thank you or hate you!
P.S. Love your column.

[Fish23]

Great information Steve, but isn't Canada in North America already?

[hardknoxfirst]

I've seen a LOT malware floating around lately, so I was attracted to the header of your article, and I found an added bonus.


I'm an online college student, and since I downloaded MS XP SP3 I've had nothing but problems, and I've been neglecting my studies in my quest to figure out which of the recent updates (IE, Firefox, XP SP3, etc.) was responsible for my computer crashes, among other annoyances. Your article made my day, and my puter has quit scratching from all the bugs crawling around inside, and I no longer have the urge to throw my innocent library in a box out into my back yard!





Thanks Steve! I LOVE PC World!!





Steve (me)

[coastie65]

While looking for some info on XP MCE 2005 Istallation/Repair, I clicked a lionk that tried to have me update Adobe Flash Player, as well as a package of Codecs. There was also an attempt to add a BHO item to my browser. I ended up with several things, First, There was this thing called Trojan-Downloader- Zlob. The other two items were another nuisance that had Hijacked my Wallpaper. That was removed by using Malwarebytes' software. As far as the Trojan went, Webroot corraled that thing and it was removed. I used at least 7 different utilities to scan and all are now ngative, including Panda which scanned a total of over 550,000 files. These things apparantly can get through, as I am using Avast! and Webroot as my active AV and Antispyware utilities. This site was a legitimate site , but had apparantly been Hijacked. coastie65

[trek87]

too bad macs don't have any fewer problems

[Singh]

hey ppl what are u talking about? who is steve? why r u all so thankful to him?

[coastie65]

Hi Singh, Steve is Steve Bass, the author of the article and any new stuff on internet security is always appreciated. coastie65

[rodherz]

Mac's are for crying girls...
On this and all other columns.
Period.

[dragon69]

macs are much more secure then windows ( i wish i had 1 instead of this vista garbage ) so macs are for the smarter people and not for crying girls like the cry baby rodherz states

[MAcUser21]

dragon69 wrote:macs are much more secure then windows ( i wish i had 1 instead of this vista garbage ) so macs are for the smarter people and not for crying girls like the cry baby rodherz states
well, No one are sure if Mac is actual more secure or else. however Mac does get few virus though more like pin compare what microsoft get. from what I hear that OS X hasn't got hitted by serious malware for 10 years or thing like this. either way Mac DO HAVE LESS VIRUS THAN window. I am sure that average people don't give sh about market size and possible future virus, they only care about present. and present said that Mac has less virus than Microsoft :D also, I think Mac are design for both Intellectual people and people who suffer Technical challange.

[stomfi]

Although hard to quantify, recent services usage figures suggest that now only 89% of users are on Windows, down from their high of 95%, 9.5% on MAC, up from 8%, and 1.5% on Linux, up from 0.8%.
Obviously in non USA countries where people have to pay extra for Windows hardware or software for XP or Vista, the figure for Linux could be higher as it gets installed for free on older hardware.
In any case when one translates the percentages into numbers of the estimated billion users, one gets a hefty 89 million MAC users and a not to be ignored 15 million Linux users.
Since this magazine is called PC User, a general term, and not the specific Microsoft PC User, articles should state at the beginning which OS platform the information covers, whether it is for a desktop/laptop or server implementation, and whenever possible in an obvious place, a comment or link regarding MAC and Linux solutions.
Firstly, not following these unbiased reporting techniques makes Windows look bad if they are the only one considered to get malware infections, and secondly it annoys readers who follow an article only to find out at the end that their OS platform is not compatible with recommended software, hardware, technique. or tip and trick.

[Cycat]

Also, watch for an email "From: Microsoft XP" and the subject "Re: Official Update 2008" . The first line is ""You are receiving this email because you subscribed to MSN Featured Offers." There is a link and it takes you to an site that INSTANTLY tries to download at least 5 backdoor trojans. Thanks for the heads up, Steve--thought this attack was probably from the same fine folks that you referenced. BTW, I'm another that SP3 completely trashed my system requiring windows reload--you can block the update at the Win Update site, but Microsoft still prompts you in vague ways that there is a "security update" you need to install, that being SP3, of course.

[hardknoxfirst]

What ticks me off about XP SP3 is that the original date of release was supposed to be at the end of April '08, but they had some more work to do to get the bugs out, so they released it a few weeks ago (8-08) instead. One would think that all those those MS genius's could have gotten SP3 relatively bug free during that period, rather than dump that mess on us!


Even after performing the uninstall of SP3, I continue to have problems. I'm considering going back a month, using system restore on puter, and getting it back functioning correctly again.



Microsoft has lost a lot of crediblity with me after this half-baked release.



Good luck with your issues!

[MAcUser21]

well, probably they add some more stuff into SP3 instead work out bug?

[Cycat]

Hey, hardknoxfirst,

Yes, you'd think bugs would be actually
fixed, but that would go against the Microsoft heritage of using
consumers as unwilling beta testers--throughout the run of an OS version. Remember that when XP was first
released, there were over 60.000 bugs that Microsoft acknowledged
at the time of release. ( And, yes, mackuser21-- they undoubtedly added new
ingrediants to the soup in SP3 that aparrently conflict with the
operating system and software that wasn't conflicted with in the prior SP2 since the Windows operating files themselves
become corrupted).

Hardknoxfirst, one of the many things SP3 did to me was trash the
System Restore files. I suggest first backing up your documents and
pictures to external media, then uninstalling SP3 if you're having
trouble with it. The Revo uninstaller advertised (and recommended by
Steve in an earlier post) actually does do a good job and lets you see
what's left of a program in the registry (plus, it won't allow you to
inadvertently ditch something critical to the System, a nice touch).
One thing I did discover was not to try to restore any program backups
I had run after downloading SP3--it was kind of like removing half the
malware and leaving the system very unstable and unpredictable. After
I reloaded windows with SP2, all has been well (and I am by gosh keeping
my backups up to date now ;-) Good luck to you, also.

[DeadlyAssassin]

you had to know ms wouldnt do much with xp sp3 since theyre trying to get people to move to vista. some think ms broke xp with sp3 purposely to try and get people to switch over to vista. kinda like how apple will break iPhones if not used the way apple wants you to.



http://www.paradisecentral.org?

[Cycat]

DeadlyAssassin

I didn't include that in my post, but you could have taken the words right out of my mouth. I tried SP3 thinking it would be the last XP OS update prior to MS abandoning support for XP forever. As my dad used to say, "You bets your money and you takes your chances."