Editor's Blog1 min ago
PC help needed, please!
Since Saturday we have been unable to access some websites: some take ages to load, others (mainly secure) one do not load at all. Contacted AOL, they say a number of AOL members have been affected & that it is a fault their end. Fine, I thought! But have noticed unusual firewall activity since this issue started. Now, I am not up to speed with firewall, etc. But we have Norton 360 All-in-one security, up to date definitions, etc. The activity says severity is just 'info' and says things have been detected. Lots of things 'preparing to access the internet' even before we have turned on router or broadband. Any ideas would be much appreciated as we are wondering if the 2 problems are linked, firewall activity & AOL problems, if so how? And whether we should be concerned with the firewall activity we are seeing.
Thank you
Thank you
Answers
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.Norton? ugh, AOL? UGH !
My advice, ditch AOL -they're notorious for being unreliable and invasive, just go for Virginmedia or BT. Norton is a massive pain in the a*se -it effectively IS a virus IMO. Ditch that too although you may have some trouble removing it -which says a lot. I assume you're running Windows XP or Vista (?) in which case, they have a perfectly effective firewall built in as long as you keep your updates regular. AVG Free has a proven track record of being a reliable un-invasive anti-virus program, it just gets on with it in the background and doesn't clog up your system.
My advice, ditch AOL -they're notorious for being unreliable and invasive, just go for Virginmedia or BT. Norton is a massive pain in the a*se -it effectively IS a virus IMO. Ditch that too although you may have some trouble removing it -which says a lot. I assume you're running Windows XP or Vista (?) in which case, they have a perfectly effective firewall built in as long as you keep your updates regular. AVG Free has a proven track record of being a reliable un-invasive anti-virus program, it just gets on with it in the background and doesn't clog up your system.
Thanks, although I appreciate what you say mustardmit I have been with AOL for years and never had any problems, until now of course.
hc4361, we always turn things off at the socket but have tried turning things on in order but still the same thing happens. Could the problem that AOL say is their end, cause unusual firewall activity; lots of 'an instance of c;\program files etc etc is preparing to access the internet'. Is it likely to be a virus or something in the startup menu? If so, how do you remove it if Norton isn't finding it? I have run a full system scan in safe mode and again Norton found nothing.
hc4361, we always turn things off at the socket but have tried turning things on in order but still the same thing happens. Could the problem that AOL say is their end, cause unusual firewall activity; lots of 'an instance of c;\program files etc etc is preparing to access the internet'. Is it likely to be a virus or something in the startup menu? If so, how do you remove it if Norton isn't finding it? I have run a full system scan in safe mode and again Norton found nothing.
" c;\program files etc etc"
Think it might help if you'd expand a little on the etc etc. it is relevant.
Norton's anti-spyware isn't that great, i'd download malwarebytes and run a full system scan with that and see if that finds anything (it won't cause any problems running it as well as norton)
http://download.cnet....72&subj=dl&tag=button
Think it might help if you'd expand a little on the etc etc. it is relevant.
Norton's anti-spyware isn't that great, i'd download malwarebytes and run a full system scan with that and see if that finds anything (it won't cause any problems running it as well as norton)
http://download.cnet....72&subj=dl&tag=button
I was wondering that Jumbuck although I wouldn't know how to find out that info.
chuckfickens - sorry, there are a lot of c:\program files firewall activity but a couple of them are - common files\aol\acs\aoldial.exe, microsoft\search enhancement pack\seaport\seaport.exe, then we have some for dell support centre, itunes, bonjour, norton, system 32 wininit, there are a lot of them. Then we have things like Ip address has disappeared from adaptor Realtek, then blocked communication, connected to shared network, so there is lot of activity that never used to be detected or shown on the firewall activity.
chuckfickens - sorry, there are a lot of c:\program files firewall activity but a couple of them are - common files\aol\acs\aoldial.exe, microsoft\search enhancement pack\seaport\seaport.exe, then we have some for dell support centre, itunes, bonjour, norton, system 32 wininit, there are a lot of them. Then we have things like Ip address has disappeared from adaptor Realtek, then blocked communication, connected to shared network, so there is lot of activity that never used to be detected or shown on the firewall activity.
Sounds like your DNS servers could be the problem - you can use open DNS for free try these to se if this is the problem
http://www.opendns.com/start/
http://www.opendns.com/start/