How to protect laptops from viruses?

[journey00]

Cross post from high school forum: Staples called me & my dd's school laptop is fried due to idk what...Ugh.  Thank goodness we have been backing up on Google drive.  What do you use to protect your laptop from viruses & malware? Thanks.

[PeterPan]

Buy mac.

 

Adding, I know that's not what you wanted.  ;)  I'm just saying I got sick of it and moved over.  

Edited March 13, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[Um_2_4]

Install these 2 free softwares: Avast free antivirus and Malwarebytes. Both can be found free on download.com (safe site).

Just be sure to do this: READ every screen as you install. Some want you to install Bing search engine or other search software (you can deny this) or want you to "try the premium version free for xx days" (you can decline and just use the basic version, which has been fine for me on multiple machines for years). You will need to register the avast with your email, just make sure to opt out of the emails.

[happypamama]

The computer geeks recommend Avast to us as well as MalwareBytes.  Currently I am just using Avast, as some of the virus programs don't always play nicely with my filtering software.  I might add MB at some point as well.

[Slache]

Avast and MalwareBytes. :) We've relied on just those since before we were married almost 10 years ago. Never had a problem.

[G5052]

Yup. Get some good software.

 

Do you think you got it from using wi-fi somewhere? Otherwise protecting it is just like a regular PD.

[journey00]

I downloaded Avast & Malware on all my laptops & one pc.  Thank you so much, everyone! :)

 

[Lanny]

We have been using Advanced SystemCare by IObit for approximately 5 years. My wife had tried others, before settling on this. At first, we used the Free version. Now, we have two (2) licenses for Advanced SystemCare Ultimate. Each license is for three (3) PCs.  Mos of our boxes are running Windows 7, one is running Windows 8.1 and I was told last night that one I thought was running Windows 8.1 was upgraded to Windows 10. There do not seem to be any issues running Advanced SystemCare Ultimate.  I run a Full Scan of the hard disk drive in this laptop every morning after I turn it on and then I run their Suite of Utilities, to check for errors (and fix any errors it finds) in the Windows Registry, etc.  The Renewal of each license costs USD $14 or $15 as I recall.  

[Lanny]

Yup. Get some good software.

 

Do you think you got it from using wi-fi somewhere? Otherwise protecting it is just like a regular PD.

 

Good point G5052!  This was about 2 years ago. One of my childhood friends was in a terminal building in LAX (Los Angeles International). He (mistakenly) assumed the WiFi of the airport would be OK.  A PUBLIC WIFI IS NEVER TRUSTWORTHY! Someone attacked his laptop. He saw something was awry and disconnected.  He then used his cell phone as a WAP.  He now has a VPN service.

 

I have a tiny (128 MB) VPS (virtual private server) and I have OpenVPN Access Server installed on it.  Away from our house, I connect via OpenVPN Access Server (which gives me the IP address for the VPS) to connect to any web site I need to log into with my user name and password.  

 

I also have OpenVPN installed on my new Android phone.  

[sweetpea3829]

I use Avast, too. And when I really want a thorough scan, I do a boot-time scan with Avast, then I install Malwarebytes and scan with that. I also use the online fsecure and spybot. I scan in safe mode and in regular mode. Then I clean up with CCleaner. It all takes forever, but I've been fortunate to not have a BSoD in over ten years, using this procedure. I usually do all of this about twice a year. But I do boot scans much more often.

 

Also, I don't keep anything but Avast active. The rest, I uninstall. As somebody else mentioned, some of these don't play well with each other and are not great for everyday use.

[journey00]

I didn't realize you could catch a virus from a public Wifi...I try to avoid them because of hacking.  Interesting.