Did you know that many antivirus companies are offering free rescue CDs you can download and use to clean your computer from viruses and spyware? Such CDs are especially useful when you cannot boot your computer due to a virus infection or in some cases the virus cannot be cleaned, because some windows components that are currently running are infected. In other cases malware can prevent antivirus systems from running. Here is a list of some of the popular choices out there.
- Kaspersky - about 100MB and my personal favorite used on the computers at my home: Download Kaspersky Rescue CD. The disk is Linux Kaspersky 2008 engine based and features virus definitions update function, which is very important, so you don’t have to build the rescue cd every time the virus definitions change.
Note: If you own 2009 KAV or KIS you can build such a disk yourself directly from the Kaspersky interface.
- BitDefender – about 228MB. Download BitDefender Rescue CD 2.0 . It is also a linux based solution. Similarly to Kaspersky it offers automatic virus definitions update. Also a very good antivirus. Another nice feature is that the CD includes a memory test (Memtest86+), which is a nice addition.
- VBA32 – abot 75MB. Download VBA32 Rescue Live CD. I recently stumbled across this rescue CD. Linux based and has a text mode interface. The small download size makes it useful and also can update virus signatures from internet.
- Avira AntiVir – about 45MB. Download Avira AntiVir Rescue CD. An excellent antivirus, also linux based rescue CD. Its small size allows very fast boot and download, although it doesn’t support online signatures update. Another nice feature is that it comes as an executable, that burns itself to a CD or writes an .iso image. Avira also offer a free antivirus system to install on your computer.
- F-Secure – about 222MB. Again a Linux based Rescue CD. Donwload F-Secure Rescue CD 3.01. Good antivirus system, but a very large download file. It also features virus signatures update over internet, so you’d only need to download it once.
Hopefully this information will help you the next time your computer gets infected. I would rather try more than one antivirus in such case, instead of relying on just one. All things considered all of the above are very good products, so take your pick.
Spybot Search & Destroy can help you with removing and preventing installation of spyware. I’ve used it for a long time and the program has helped me many times. Much has been written about the program, but I thought to include it here, since I find it very essential. It includes three parts:
- Main Interface to help remove and immunize (similar to SpywareBlaster) against malware and other useful tools;
- TeaTimer – to protect from unintended registry and system settings changes;
- SDHelper – to provide active protection against bad downloads in Internet Explorer;
Main Useful Features:
- Scans and removes various malwares;
- Provides immunization (which can be complemented with SpywareBlaster);
- System startup editor;
- Can be scheduled to do a system scan on system startup;
- Automatic updates of the program and malware database.
Excellent and strongly recommended tool in the battle against spyware. Of course using Mozilla Firefox also would decrease the chance of getting spyware 
.
I have always considered spyware much worse than viruses. SpywareBlaster can help you protect your computer by immunizing against known ActiveX based spyware, adware and other harmful programs. It works by creating special settings in your computer, so known harmful ActiveXs are blocked from installing.
Useful features:
- Protection against a large variety of spyware;
- No process to keep running and slow down your computer;
- Automatic updates of the malware database;
- Protection against ActiveX and unwanted cookies.
Overall a very nice and useful program. The makers provide regular database updates. The only very minor issue I have found is that when a new version is released the program doesn’t auto-update itself. Well worth a download and use.
Some time ago AOL was offering Active Virus Shield – a free antivirus software based on Kaspersky antivirus engine and many people (including myself) enjoyed the nice free virus protection. Last month (August 2007) AOL started offering a free antivirus protection based on McAfee engine, which IMHO is slower and less accurate. Since then the automatic updates stopped and the files downloaded from AOL were with “Incorrect Signature” as reported by the updates. Here is how to solve the update problem even though I don’t know how long it will last:
All you need to do is to edit your c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts and add the following line anywhere in the file on a separate line:
127.0.0.1 download.newaol.com
Why would that work?
There is a file aol-updcfg.xml, residing in c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\AOL\AVP6\Data\, which contains theupdate download locations. The locations have certain priority and the top two are ftp: and http: based updates from obviously buggy download.newaol.com. Adding the hosts entry forces windows to connect to your local machine instead of download.newaol.com, and not finding an update service. The program falls back to the secondary location(s) in kaspersky labs and viola…
Enjoy while it lasts…
CCleaner is a program to help you get rid of unnecessary files, leftover files and registry entries, resulting from install/uninstall, etc. It can also clean your browser history, cookies, temporary files, URL history.
It includes functionality to remove unnecessary registry entries like old file associations, AciveX controls, remove MRUs of various applications, Invalid shortcuts, and many more.
It is a small and fast program, that is well worth installing and using.
