The last upgrade of AVG from 8.5 to 9 has many great changes while the best features remain unchanged. The newest AVG scans much faster and uses less resources, while the residential shield (which catches malware before it has a chance to infest your computer) still works well or even better than before. And the reliability and scheduling of the scans and updates makes it my first choice in a free anti-virus for my clients. However many clients get stuck when trying to update from free AVG 8.5 to 9.0.

This is what to do: Go to Start>Control Panel>Add and Remove Programs or on Vista or Windows 7 just “Programs”. Wait for Windows to form a list of installed programs. Find AVG in the list and uninstall it. Then reboot the computer. Now that 8.5 is removed, download and install version 9.0.

Problem solved.

I like AVG…no bones about it. And I recommend it to my clients because it’s easy to use and it’s reliable and now with version 9.0 it’s also faster again. On the comparative tests at Virus.gr, AVG Free removed 97% of the viruses. I have clients–with teenage sons— who used to hire me every six months to clean their computers of malware, I convinced them to try AVG and voila, two years later, and they still haven’t needed me to clean viruses again. I know, amazing!! And so much easier on the budget than computer repair bills.

If a client calls and asks me how to get AVG for their computer, I tell them to search for AVG on Google, but this week a client named Anna accidentally downloaded a virus from Google instead. Among all the legitimate links for AVG in her Google search results, she managed to click on a link that lead to Antivirus 2010, a rogue anti-virus which I remove several times a week from other clients’ computers.

Here’s where she clicked:

Don't download this one!

All the rest of the links are good. Look for http://avg.com or http://free.avg.com. Or you can use the one I use from CNET’s download.com: http://download.cnet.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10320142.html Since it’s Cnet, you know it’s safe. Just scroll down further in the Google search results for AVG.

Be careful out there, it’s a wild web!!

Here’s the press release from October of this year from AVG Technologies describing the newest version of AVG:

“Amsterdam, October 5, 2009 – AVG Technologies, developers of the world’s most popular free anti-virus software, today announced that its family of free and paid internet security products, AVG 9.0, would be generally available to the market in October 2009. Boosted by significant enhancements in speed and levels of protection, AVG 9.0 is also easier to use and improves end user experience. Additionally, all AVG users in the U.S. will benefit from a groundbreaking identity theft offering, powered by a partnership with Intersections Inc., North America’s leading and most innovative provider of consumer identity theft prevention solutions which has served more than 25 million consumers. AVG’s new technology products ensure that users are safe in whatever online or offline activities they undertake.

“AVG 9.0 will provide home computer users with a more powerful and more streamlined solution that adds protection without impacting user experience, taking us back to our core strength of low impact, high performance security,” said J.R. Smith, CEO, AVG Technologies. “We’ve always believed that everyone has the right to a safe online experience. With AVG 9.0, we are providing first-class assistance to our users in their development of tools and measures for their safety from all of the threats posed by cybercriminals and identity thieves, whether they’re working, playing, banking or shopping on the web.”

Often when a computer boots to a black screen with a white cursor it means your hard drive has too many errors to boot properly. Your hard drive is just too error-stricken to get its act together. You’ll need to help it.

If your computer does this and you have an XP Windows machine, you can do what it says in the first How to Fix a Black Screen with White Cursor. Or else you can try this, run Checkdisk from the Windows XP cd Recovery Console:

1. Put your XP Windows Install disk into the optical drive, the CD/DVD drive.
2. Reboot the computer.
3. Some computers will boot off the cd without changing boot order. Just “press any key to boot from the CD” when you see that message. Or you may have to:
4. Set the boot order so the computer boots off the CD, instead of going into ordinary Windows. Some computers are set to boot CDs by default and others have an option to change the boot order temporarily. Look for one of these messages as your computer starts:
5. • Press F12 (or another key) = Boot Menu
   • ESC (or another key) to select boot device
6. If you have to press a key to enter the boot menu , you should now see a selection of the devices your computer can try to boot from. Choose the CD drive and press Enter.
7. When you see the “Press any key” message, your computer is ready to boot from the Windows XP CD. Just press Enter.
8. Your system will now load files and bring you to the Windows Setup screen.


This is the Windows Setup screen

9. Type r to go into the Recovery Console.
10. Once in the Recovery Console you’ll have to pick which Windows installation you would like to log onto. Usually this is C: or 1.
11. You’ll be asked for the Administrator password, the password you picked when you setup Windows the first time. Sometimes this is blank. If you don’t know it, just press Enter.
12. Now you’ll see the command line or C prompt. It’ll look like this C:\Windows>.
13. Type chkdsk /r. (Don’t type the period.)
14. It’ll look like this: C:\Windows>chkdsk /r.
15. Hit Enter.

Checkdisk will now run. It may take a long time, in some cases, a few hours. Usually it finds many errors on a computer that is booting to the black screen with white cursor. When it is finished type exit and hit Enter.

Your computer will now reboot, hopefully into regular Windows.

Here’s an entertaining animation about perpendicular recording on hard drives. It’s from Hitachi’s Global Storage Technology about Hitachi’s new hard drive technology.

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/research/recording_head/pr/PerpendicularAnimation.html

And click here to see the Lab Rats video on perpendicular hard drives. You have to download it in the different media types such as Quicktime and Real Player below the short sample of the video.

I found a great site with all sorts of information about viruses and antiviruses called Virus.gr. The website is from Greece and among many other valuable resources has free virus scans and comparative tests that rank antivirus programs.

Click here for a link to the free virus scans and programs.

According to Virus. gr, the best from recent testing is a little known antivirus program called G Data from a company in Bochum, Germany. Second is F-secure.

Below are the results of the tests, quoted from the website.

Rank

1. G DATA 2009 20.0.2.1 – 98,89%
2. F-Secure 2009 9.00.148 – 98,72%
3. Kaspersky 2010 9.0.0.463 – 98,67%
4. AntiVir 9.0.0.381 Premium – 98,64%
5. ZoneAlarm Antivirus 8.0.400.020 – 98,62%
6. AntiVir 9.0.0.407 Personal – 98,56%
7. Ashampoo 1.61 – 98,48%
8. MultiCore 2.001.00036 – 98,36%
9. Paretologic 6.1.1 – 98,11%
10. TrustPort 2.8.0.2255 – 98,03%
11. eScan 10.0.977.4091 – 97,82%
12. The Shield 2009 12.0.12 – 97,72%
13. BitDefender 2010 11.0.15.297 – 97,61%
14. Ikarus 1.0.97 – 97,15%
15. AVG 8.5.392 Free – 97%
16. BitDefender 2009 12.0.12.0 Free – 96,37%
17. Nod32 4.0.437.0 – 95,97%
18. Avast 4.8.1335 Free – 95,87%
19. Comodo 3.9.95478.509 – 95,57%
20. Trend Micro Antivirus 17.1.1250 – 95,36%
21. F-Prot 6.0.9.1 – 93,03%
22. McAfee Enterpise 8.7.0i – 92,35%
23. McAfee 13.11.102 – 92,32%
24. Norman Security Suite 7.10.0.1 – 90,76%
25. Blink Personal 4.3.2 – 90,17%
26. Vba32 3.12.10.9 – 89,91%
27. K7 Antivirus 7.7.0568 – 89,02%
28. Norton 16.5.0.134 – 87,37%
29. ArcaVir 2009 – 85,09%
30. Outpost 6.7.2957.446.0711 – 83,59%
31. Dr. Web 5.00.4.06300 – 82,89%
32. Rising AV 21.51 – 80,92%
33. Vipre 3.1.2775 – 79,69%
34. Kingsoft 2009.08.05.16 – 79,59%
35. V3 Internet Security 2009.08.10.02 – 79,24%
36. ViRobot Desktop 5.5 – 79,05%
37. Antiy Ghostbusters 6.1.6 – 77,14%
38. Panda 2009 9.00.00 – 70,8%
39. Twister 7.3.3.9983 – 67,14%
40. Virus Chaser 5.0a – 66,54%
41. Quick Heal 10.00 – 65,97%
42. PC Tools 6.0.0.19 – 59,77%
43. ClamWin 0.95.2 – 52,48%
44. Sophos Sweep 7.6.8 – 42,84%
45. Iolo 1.5.3 – 40,14%
46. Net Protector 2009 – 34,34%
47. The Cleaner 2010 Free 6.1.0.2007 – 34,11%
48. Digital Patrol 5.10.102 – 27,29%
49. Trojan Hunter 5.1.875 – 24%
50. Protector Plus 8.0.E02 – 21,61%
51. Solo 8.0 – 11,3%
52. Trojan Remover 6.8.1 – 11,16%
53. VirIT 6.4.71 – 9,01%
54. IOBit Security 360 beta 3.1 – 8,92%
55. PCClear 1.0.8.6 – 8,08%

Ms. Ducktoes did it! I beat the dreaded Virut without reformatting. This is how I did it.

1. The Dr. Web Cureit Live CD I spoke of in the last post didn’t work. At the beginning of the scan, it stopped everytime. So instead:
2. I created an Ultimate Boot CD for Windows. I downloaded the image from the UBCD website and burned it to cd. There are detailed instructions on the site on how to do this.
3. I booted off the cd and went on the Internet through the UBCD interface. I downloaded Dr. Web Cureit to the Ram drive.
4. Then from the “Run” option off the start menu I browsed to the B: Ram drive and opened cureit.exe.
5. Dr. Web Cureit started. I had to stop the Express scan and run the Custom scan and select the C drive or the C and D drives since I had more than one hard drive. Otherwise Dr. Web Cureit just scanned the CD.
6. I cured the files instead of deleting them. The Virut virus changes the system files and your computer system needs them.
7. I scanned a three times this way.
8. I rebooted but the computer wouldn’t start. So I did a “repair install” with my Windows Xp cd.
9. After the Repair Install, it booted, but after the logon, the logon kept returning. I couldn’t get past it.
10. So I booted off the UBCD and replaced the Userinit.exe file in the System32/dllcache folder. I found another copy of it in the 1386 folder and copied and pasted. You can search using the Windows Explorer on the UBCD disk.
11. Then I ran regedit (still off UBCD) and searched for userinit. I found the registry keys related to userinit. One of them was set for the logon to repeat over and over, so I changed it from “1″ to “0″.
12. Then I rebooted and the computer started and the logon didn’t repeat!!
13. Immediately I went into Safe Mode and started running virus scans like crazy. I ran Malwarebytes, AVG, SuperAntiSpyware and Dr. Web Cureit again. And found more trojans and viruses.
14. After all the scans ran clean. I rebooted.
15. The Virut was removed!!! And I didn’t reformat.

The worst virus I’ve ever seen is now making its way through Bit Torrent and Limewire and other file sharing programs. It’s called Virut. And once you have it it’s pretty much game over and time for a clean install. You’re done. At least you’re operating system is kaput. So if I were you I’d make sure your anti-virus is working and updating regularly. And stay away from P2Ps until this settles down. Lots of people are losing everything on their computers. What makes Virut so nasty is that it patches itself to every executable, so everything time you run an anti-virus, it “patches itself” onto the anti-virus. Also it changes system files, so if you “delete” instead of “cure” or “heal” them, you’ll be facing at least a Repair install.

Some fixes for Virut run in Safe Mode, but on my client’s computer, Safe Mode isn’t working. I’m right now trying a method I saw on the Internet that uses Dr. Web. Cure-it.

Yesterday I mentioned Google Docs as a free alternative to Microsoft Office.

All you have to do is sign up for a free Gmail account and you also receive a calendar program and Google docs, among many other free programs.

With Google docs you can create and share your online documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. You don’t have to share them, of course, but you can if you want or need to collaborate with someone.

I’ve started to use it and find it fully-featured and easy to use. It comes with

Here's the To Do List Template.

To find Google docs, click here.