spy

[sheila17456]

when i start up my laptop i have a message across my desktop which states that it has found 92 threats and have pictures of beetles crawling over it. i get popups offering to clean it for a price but i dont know if they are safe, any advice of what cleaner to use and what i should be paying. i am with virgin media do they offer any help?

[vehelpfulguy]

NEVER agree to buy any software that says they will clean up your PC for a price. They often lie about how many viruses you have, just to frighten you into paying.

You could try Adaware (free) to see if it will find it.

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad_aware_f ree.php

Also Spybot Search and Destroy has a good reputation (not one I have used though)

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

Sometimes you need to run 2 or 3 of these programs to find the culprit as not all programs find all threats.

[vehelpfulguy]

You do not say if you have anti-virus software already installed or not, but if you havn't then you should install one and run it.

Try AVG 8.0 which is free (yes I know there are other free anti virus products available).

You can get it from here

http://free.grisoft.com/ww.download-avg-anti-v irus-free-edition#tba2

Also you should have a firewall as well.

ZoneAlarm is free.

[sheila17456]

thank you i will try these

[Elmek]

comodo firewall is also very good they have a couple of other free products (antivirus an malware),but i cant rate them cos i aint tried them