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Where do I download viruses to infect my PC?
- Thread starter Bobdude161
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I find all the "turn your firewall off, uninstall antivirus and just browse the internet" statements a bit unfounded. Does this really happen? Because it doesn't to me. I don't have a firewall, I don't bother with antivirus because it slows my PC down. I don't go around browsing questionable websites but I do use the Internet a lot, including torrents and P2P. My PC is fine. 
You have to be pretty irresponsible and/or unknowledgeable to mess up your PC. Unfortunately most people are. This is the only reason why Windows PCs seem to deteriorate. There are a lot of people out there trying to get you, since you use a PC, and generally, people are going to make mistakes and bring it unto themselves.
Use computers intelligently. Macs included!
Yeesh.
You have to be pretty irresponsible and/or unknowledgeable to mess up your PC. Unfortunately most people are. This is the only reason why Windows PCs seem to deteriorate. There are a lot of people out there trying to get you, since you use a PC, and generally, people are going to make mistakes and bring it unto themselves.
Use computers intelligently. Macs included!
Yeesh.
I'm in it for the music.
I've never run across a virus inside free music, though...
...I mean, free music? What music?
The keygen music.I've never run across a virus inside free music, though...
...I mean, free music? What music?
I find all the "turn your firewall off, uninstall antivirus and just browse the internet" statements a bit unfounded. Does this really happen? Because it doesn't to me. I don't have a firewall, I don't bother with antivirus because it slows my PC down. I don't go around browsing questionable websites but I do use the Internet a lot, including torrents and P2P. My PC is fine.
You have to be pretty irresponsible and/or unknowledgeable to mess up your PC. Unfortunately most people are. This is the only reason why Windows PCs seem to deteriorate. There are a lot of people out there trying to get you, since you use a PC, and generally, people are going to make mistakes and bring it unto themselves.
Use computers intelligently. Macs included!
Yeesh.
This is precisely the answer. To quote one of my favorite guitarists/singers: It's in the way that you use it.
Some of my friends and relatives get annoyed with me because they will forward me something, and I automatically delete it. Then they ask if I saw the link/powerpoint/video they sent me. I tell them I don't open mass forward emails.
Download some keyloggers. I was downloading some yesterday to infect this guy so I could steal his password (I'm evil, aren't I), and McAfee came up like "Trojan removed" whenever I downloaded some.
LoL that will do it every time - Go and download other rubbish like imesh and limewire, pages that contain cracks and serial numbers will be riddled in them.
long winded post
I ended up with 26 viruses and 20 adware/spywares in one hour. Here is the way I tried to remove them in case you're interested at all.
Used a Windows live CD called Ultimate Boot CD for Windows to help me remove my viruses and spyware. I doubt it removed all of them but it did a good job making it look like Windows was running normally.
Ran HijackThis to verify that all the junk was off and I still had some stragglers. They couldn't be removed by HijackThis so I had to go into the registry to delete them. Only problem was the one of the viruses disabled REGEDIT. So I then had to find hack to re-enable it. Once that was done I deleted the unwanted entries.
The only thing that was left was a broken driver for my ethernet port. I tried a bunch of things to fix it, but nothing really worked. So I fooled around in REGEDIT again and I think that's where I screwed up.
So THEN, I did a system repair using the Windows XP install CD. Only problem was that I don't have a legit copy to continue that process.
Planning to do another complete re-install and try it again. Why? Just want to see if there is any chance at all in saving a PC from a basket full of viruses without reinstalling. One well known company that repairs PCs for a fee has it's own Windows live disk where it can do just that without much intervention (unlike my experience). I'd like to find out which programs out there that are open source and/or free that could do the same or close to the same.
I ended up with 26 viruses and 20 adware/spywares in one hour. Here is the way I tried to remove them in case you're interested at all.
Used a Windows live CD called Ultimate Boot CD for Windows to help me remove my viruses and spyware. I doubt it removed all of them but it did a good job making it look like Windows was running normally.
Ran HijackThis to verify that all the junk was off and I still had some stragglers. They couldn't be removed by HijackThis so I had to go into the registry to delete them. Only problem was the one of the viruses disabled REGEDIT. So I then had to find hack to re-enable it. Once that was done I deleted the unwanted entries.
The only thing that was left was a broken driver for my ethernet port. I tried a bunch of things to fix it, but nothing really worked. So I fooled around in REGEDIT again and I think that's where I screwed up.
So THEN, I did a system repair using the Windows XP install CD. Only problem was that I don't have a legit copy to continue that process.
Planning to do another complete re-install and try it again. Why? Just want to see if there is any chance at all in saving a PC from a basket full of viruses without reinstalling. One well known company that repairs PCs for a fee has it's own Windows live disk where it can do just that without much intervention (unlike my experience). I'd like to find out which programs out there that are open source and/or free that could do the same or close to the same.
Trying to 'break' a machine or software is the best way to really find your way around an OS. Even on some of my earlier MacRumors posts I would reproduce or attempt to reproduce an OP's problem to try and fix it.
I've crashed the Windows 7 beta several times to try out things sometimes knowing it was going to fail.
Of course regedits can really screw up Windows as Bobdude161 notes.
I've crashed the Windows 7 beta several times to try out things sometimes knowing it was going to fail.
Of course regedits can really screw up Windows as Bobdude161 notes.
Really? I've spent a year without a virus scanner and ran into no problems. This is under XP SP3 on my iMac. How do you people get these problems!
Perhaps. But I forgot to mention that at one point a friend was over and her daughters used the netbook to chat and check their email. Two teenage girls. I'm pretty sure one of them clicked on something they shouldn't have.
Well, as the OP indicates (getting 26 viruses in the span of one hour) it is definitely possible.
And, as someone said, if you don't run virus scanners, how do you KNOW you weren't infected? I had no idea my netbook was infected, it's not like it started to do weird things... the only reason I know is that my internet provider shut down my internet on me, and told me why when I called in. To be fair, I haven't actually run the virus scan on my netbook yet so I don't KNOW that it actually has a virus, only that something triggered my ISP to shut down my internet -- and it surely wasn't my Mac.
Oh I installed a virus scanner eventually, both Windows and OSX would take an age to load so I ran a couple of virus scanners, defragged both partitions (OSX more so than XP ironically) but it just turned out the HDD was breaking.
I have AVG on now and 2 years later on the same Windows install; no viruses.
I have AVG on now and 2 years later on the same Windows install; no viruses.
I doubt there's a faster way............
BTW, this reminds me of the days I used to try to get sick on purpose, to get out of going to school. I just find this hysterical, try to catch a virus on purpose...
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 I AM NOT THE ONLY PERSON WHO DOES THIS!!!!!!!
I also collect viruses, so I would GREATLY appreciate if you kept a copy of the viruses. Registry files and executables.
Edit: Sorry, in my enthusiasm I overlooked that this was an old post.
Edit2: Also, if you want LOADS of viruses go to limewire, download zip files, run them. One exe from there got me at least 12 different viruses. One of which was internet security 2010 (I love this program). I am still looking for the installer however.
I also collect viruses, so I would GREATLY appreciate if you kept a copy of the viruses. Registry files and executables
.Edit: Sorry, in my enthusiasm I overlooked that this was an old post.
Edit2: Also, if you want LOADS of viruses go to limewire, download zip files, run them. One exe from there got me at least 12 different viruses. One of which was internet security 2010 (I love this program). I am still looking for the installer however.
Download one of those downloading sites. Limewire or something. All of my friends who I have helped out had these installed, downloading illegal music and movies.