Virus Wars

A few days ago, I got my computer back from the shop.  It was the third time in a month.  Talking to the techs, I learned a lot of things that I didn't know about computers. The second time I got it back, I thought that I could fight the virus wars by myself, but I eventually had to once again leave it to the professionals.

Armed with what I already knew, and supplemented by what I learned from talking to the techs, I fought a three-day antivirus battle.  I alternated between scans using Microsoft Security Essentials and McAfee Scan, doing both quick scans and full scans.  A full scan took about six hours.

After I thought I had zapped all the viruses, I tried a theory that with less open on the computer, there would be less for viruses to attack.  But 10 minutes into a SNG, I started getting more virus warnings, with nothing open but Americas Cardroom, Holdem Manager and Windows Calculator--none of which required me to open a browser.  My side of the computer locked up a few minutes later.

I spent most of one day running scans, getting a report of three or five or eight new viruses, cleaning them out, getting control of my side of the computer for a while, then losing it again.

I think it's going to be OK now.  I learn a few new tricks every time this happens, about how to in general maintain my computer, and in particular how to deal with viruses.  Also, this time Crashmasters set me up, at no charge, with Comodo, which they consider the top-of-the line computer protection and antivirus suite.

They said that they wouldn't recommend Comodo for most people, because it's a very complicated suite of options that most people wouldn't want to deal with.  Also, it's very intrusive, constantly asking for permissions and stopping anything that it hasn't seen before. But they thought I knew enough to handle it, and that given my situation, it was my best option.  I completely agreed.

So far it's working very well.  I played two SNGs each of the last three days without incident. It's a big relief.  I'm not on mother-in-law duty the next three days, so I should be able to put in some serious time, including a lot more than two SNGs per day.