Viruses (I got one!)

[Kabutos]

"Yes, your two gigs of RAM, dual-core two gigahertz processor, two-hundred gig hard drive, and relatively nice video card are just a heap of crap."

...Should I be afraid that you just listed the specs of my computer?


However, I've stopped getting viruses ever since I run routine virus scans and stopped downloading those damn smiles/cursors/etc.

 

[Baby Tea]

I have never had a virus ever, and i'm connected to the internet 12 hours a day surfing everywhere downloading tons of stuff. my little old laptop is still runnning in tiptop shape since late 06. Maybe I'm just lucky

EDIT: Seriously am I the only one who never got a virus? I don't even run anti virus software, and have windows defender and such turned off cause pop ups annoy me. Yet my lappy runs like a clock.

I never had a virus.
But I also never do fire-sharing or torrents.
I never EVER use Internet Explorer (I'm pretty sure it's Satan in electronic form).
I keep Windows Updated (If I'm using Windows...I'm sort of a Linux guy).
And I don't surf porn or other sites that are itching to drop random crap into my computer.

Result? No viruses.
Booyah.

 

[Convenient_Label]

Had a sum total of one virus. On my work computer. Which I got from the manager's computer. Which the IT guys were none too please with, since he'd turned off the custodial software "because it kept popping up these messages I didn't understand".

 

[Seydaman]

I had an old eMachines when I was a naive youngster, and when I finally ran a virus scan I had well over 2000.

xD i have 4956

 

[GenHellspawn]

Proxy Server + Norton Antivirus: Corporate Edition = Viruses piss their pants when they look at my computer.

 

[Ace of Spades]

Viruses murdered half of my games. I tried fixing them, and my PC basically told me to go fuck myself. I gave up being a PC gamer after that.

 

[Ronwue]

Well... there was this one time one virus deleted ALL my not running .exe files (you can't delete running files) and immediatly that I turned them off I lost them too.

 

[SAccharing10]

I remember when my brother tried to move Diablo 2 from C drive to D drive, oh that gave us one hell of a virus.

 

[MercenaryCanary]

those of you who have viruses quit getting them from porn sites BURN!

You do know that you can get viruses from other sites right?
The first one I ever got which was around a year ago was caught from trying to download The Mission Impossible theme song.
I'm not saying that porn is completely virus-free but consider the other variables next time pal.

 

[DartMcloud]

My old desktop computer attracted a ton of virus, but I've since then switched to Macs. Of course, I was never really a huge PC gamer in the first place.

 

[Berethond]

Nope. I had a computer get fried once, though. Twice, actually.
Lightning is fun!

That happened to a friend of mine's computer. Part of the hard drive actually melted. It was priceless.

My Motherboard turned into a giant heap of plastic.

That is what I call Nature's Righteous Fury. And it is crazy nuts.

Yeah. Good thing I wasn't in town during said lightning storm.
EDIT: My friend's toaster actually exploded becuase of this storm.

Like, shrapnel and flames explosion? Wow... that is some Fury.

Well, it overheated the elements so fast that the outside shattered. No fire, sparks probably. He came home from school and was like "holy crap, where's the toaster"
And it was in bits all over the floor.

 

[Conqueror Kenny]

There's something worse than virii. Forceful Adware. It closes your current internet session and makes 2-10 new internet sessions with the advertisement it's showing.

EDIT: But then I got Firefox and they all dissappeared. Mysterious.

Funny the opposite happened to me. I got Firefox and more came. Ironically for anti virus software which was most likely more viruses.
Thank the lord for Chrome.

 

[halofox117]

one of my old comps had so many virusis that i could not move the mouse icon

 

[HSIAMetalKing]

I certainly hope I'm not getting viruses. I'm pretty careful-- I've got scans and browser add-ons and whathave you. There aren't any viruses that I'm aware of on my system... but really, it's not the viruses that you would be aware of that you want to be afraid of. It's those sneaky, invisible viruses that EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU HAS RIGHT NOW IT'S STEALING YOUR CHILDRENS' COLLEGE FUND AAAAAAAAH

 

[Railu]

Not exactly on topic, but I hate when family/friends call me up and say "My computer is acting funny/slow. Do I have a virus?" I say "it's possible", then I look at their PC and find out 3 things:

1. It's from the mesozoic era.
2. It has 2MB of disk space and has never been defragged.
3. It's running windows 95/98

My simple answer: Get a new computer.

 

[geldonyetich]

In my 20-something years of constant computer using, I don't think I've ever caught a virus. At worst, once I agreed to install an ActiveX control claiming to be a game, and it instantly dumped a suite of about a dozen adware/spyware programs on my computer. I got rid of those pretty quickly, but I learnt my lesson: never run an ActiveX-enabled browser. If this test works [http://www.pcpitstop.com/testax.asp] for you, switch to Firefox [http://www.getfirefox.com] and never install an ActiveX adapter for it.

Aside from that, I pretty much just keep AVG Free running and steer clear of anything obvious. Obvious candidates are:

• [li]Most software that claims it needs to be installed to view web pages. If you've got Java and Flash, that's probably all you need. If you're on some porn site that offers you free skin if only you'd install their software, chances are you're staring at a porn dailer [http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/glossary/definition226.html] or just malware in general.[/li]
  [li]Software which claims to perform "system optimization" or "registry cleaning." We haven't needed these since Windows 98. At best, they're just bloatware that deletes harmless files or makes pointless changes. At worse, they're trojans/viruses. Funny enough, my brother was once infected by a trojan-bearing piece of system optimization software advertised on MajorGeeks as a featured advertiser.[/li]
  [li]Anything you receive in an unsolicited email. No reputable company will never ask you to do anything or provide information over email.[/li]
  [li]Underground software. Pirated games, hacker tools, or cheating mods. As underground software, there's really very little stopping somebody from slipping something in to hijack your computer. You just have to hope that somebody found and fixed it before you did.[/li]

I recently came under the realization that fear of viruses and adware is a real problem for indy developers. If you're not from a big game development house or being distributed by a publisher, a lot of people look at your games and are afraid to run them. Thanks a lot for strengthening The Man in your crude attempts to oppose them, malware creators.

 

[VaioStreams]

i actually just got done fighting one off. the core.cache.dsk but now i'm thinking of just nukeing my entire system. still backing crap up.

 

[[Gavo]]

I got BRATSK.exe the other day...took forever to kill.

 

[Blue Sonnet]

Remember the good old days when all viruses did was put silly pictures and messages on your screen? These days its all about installing spyware and adware to try to get your bank details.

My mother thinks my brother knows everything to know about computers, purely because he spends all evening online and is a bloke.
Doesn't matter that I can build the bloody things and worked at PC World for two years.
Bloody Y chromosomes.

At the moment she is complaining that her brand new PC is running slower than a one legged hamster on a broken wheel, but won't let me look at it - my suspicion is that the software cracks (spelled Crackz on the website they are from) for her Popcap games are stuffed with spyware, but because the games stop running when I remove the malicious software I'm not allowed to clean it. That drives me insane, I can't stand knowing that there is spyware on a PC in the same house and same router connection as me!

As an aside, has anyone been getting those "your parcel hasn't been delivered, please download this totally innocent zip file" mails? I keep wondering whether the attachment is a virus, keylogger or just a blatant gimme your bank details form.

 

[Anarchemitis]

No, I stick to websites I know and run virus scanning software. Not many viruses to be downloaded from the Escapist and Engadget.

Still it can't hurt to scan them too.
I scan every single file I download.