To protect your computer against spyware and viruses, we have often recommended the free versions of Avast, AVG and Anti-Malware. They were good when they were good, but times have gotten tougher.

Free programs catch 40 to 60 percent of known viruses, but new ones come out every day. A group of Russian malware writers reportedly is able to split a million dollars a month for putting viruses on your computer. Some steal identities and others spam people with ridiculous product offers. Worst of all, the malware writers send their viruses and spam out from tens of thousands often millions, of so-called “Zombie” computers.

Just what is a Zombie computer? Typically, it’s a computer that has a Zombie virus, which sends copies of itself to that person’s email and contact lists. It may also be attached to a video or text that goes out to your Facebook account. Everyone who downloads that video or comment or checks off a link for additional information, then also gets the virus.

What does it do? It allows a remote controller to send messages to all the computers that were on your mail lists, and then those computers transmit it to the ones on their list, and the whole thing becomes a cascade.

Why bother? Aha! You become a member of the Zombie army. Your computer and the thousands and perhaps millions that have been infected through the cascade of links can be used to send ads for worthless products, solicit contributions to fake charities, request help for some emergency relief, etc. The Zombies can also be used to generate so-called “Denial of Service” (DoS) attacks, the kind you sometimes read about in the newspapers. In this kind of attack, millions of computers are directed to log onto the same web site simultaneously. The resultant crush overloads their systems and forces a shutdown. This has happened to Google, AOL, large retail store chains, banks and government agencies.

How do you know you’re a Zombie? Difficult. If the computer seems much slower than it used to, or slows down markedly for short periods, that’s considered a likely, but not perfect, sign. Don’t panic, millions of others have the same problem. Sometimes your friends let you know, when they tell you they just got a reply from a company or charity they never heard of. Another sign is getting requests for information from banks you’ve never used. It’s estimated that 70 percent of all the spam on the Internet is sent by Zombies. The good news is that’s usually the only problem.

How can you clear out the Zombie? Again: difficult. The solutions we’ve searched for and asked about, nearly always come down to a complete factory restore. Remember that system disk that came with the computer? If you still have it that can restore your system to its original condition. It’s pretty drastic, though, because all the new programs you’ve accumulated will be wiped out. Faced with this prospect, you might elect to shrug and live with the Zombie.

We learned about this stuff from the makers of Bullguard, a British anti-virus program we use. It’s done a great job of protecting us against all kinds of virus attacks. For extra spyware protection we got the paid version of Anti-Malware from MalwareBytes.org, but so far, it hasn’t been able to find anything  — Bullguard had already removed whatever spyware was there.

One of the things we like about Bullguard is that it fixes things without nagging. Bullguard 12, the latest version, is even simpler to use than the last one and includes online backup. But be careful with its “PC Tuneup” feature. It’s supposed to scan and fix broken registry items, but this can sometimes mess up your computer. After we ran it just now, our printer stopped working. We used the “system restore” time travel machine to go back a few hours, when everything was working all right. (To do a system restore, click “start,” “all programs,” then “accessories,” “system tools” and “system restore.”)

Bullguard includes a “vulnerability scanner.” This prompts you to update old programs, like Adobe Reader, which are vulnerable to infection if they aren’t up to date. Bullguard 12 is available starting October 10, from Bullguard.com. The price is $60 for three users and comes with five gigabytes of online backup.

We had just about stopped looking at new security programs. There were so many it was like strapping lead weights around our computer to see if we could sink it to the bottom. However, we continue to be very pleased with Avast and Anti-Malware, both of which come in free versions, and we’re impressed with the new BullGuard Internet Security 10. It’s something different.

BullGuard comes with everything but the kitchen sink, and doesn’t slow down our computers. When you first install it, it asks if you want it to run quietly (as in: don’t bug me, just protect me) or whether you want to see what it’s doing at each step. We tried quiet mode on one computer and active mode on another. Both worked fine.

What impressed us were the extras. You get five gigabytes of free online storage for email and files. You get anti-spyware, anti-virus protection, a firewall, safe browsing, social media protection, password protection, a gaming mode and an inspector that identifies outdated software. The inspector found a dozen programs on our test computer that needed updating. These were all free programs, such as Adobe Flash player and Web Ex.  Not updating these programs makes you more vulnerable to hackers.

The program’s anti-virus approach is behavioral: If it looks like a virus and acts like a virus, kill it — even if it doesn’t match anything in the database of known viruses. This approach catches 65% more malware than traditional anti-virus programs.

In several independent studies, BullGuard scored detection rates of 100 percent against known and unknown viruses. That’s great, but it wasn’t 100 percent when it came to spyware. (Spyware is a class of programs that don’t attempt to change anything on your computer but just sit there and watches what you’re doing, then reports it back to the enemy camp.)  We left our regular Anti-Malware and anti-spyware program, from MalwareBytes.org, installed and it continued to catch stuff that BullGuard missed. You can install as many anti-spyware programs as you wish, by the way, but only one anti-virus program, because they can interfere with each other.

BullGuard can also act as an uninstaller, and automatically remove conflicting programs. The program is $60 for a one-year subscription on three computers. There’s a 30-day free trial, and that comes with 100 megabytes of online storage at bullguard.com.

BullGuard offers the Backup program on its own for $25. It gives you 10 gigabytes of online storage, encryption for your files and emails and the easiest file recovery system we’ve ever seen.

It sounded serious to her. A screen prompt told her to install McAfee’s online backup program, which she neither needs nor wants, and then asked her to pay for it. When she didn’t do that, an icon flashed ominously in Windows taskbar, telling her she must take action. This is a gun to the head to someone unfamiliar with the computer.

Joy went over to her apartment, looked at the message, and right-clicked “exit” on the flashing icon. She then looked for the online backup program in the “add/remove programs” section of the Windows Control Panel, but couldn’t find it. So she clicked “start” and then “run” from the main desktop screen and typed “msconfig” to view the “startup” tabs. It didn’t appear there either.  She told her handicapped friend that if the flashing icon comes back when she reboots, just click exit again. It is possible to find the programming code that triggers these stupid warnings, but not worth the effort when you can just click exit.

This is nothing less than fear marketing and McAfee is not the only purveyor of free floating anxiety. We used to get if frequently from Symantec’s Norton anti-virus programs, which not only insisted on frequent updates but frequent payments as well. Bob says he will never deal with them again. The word is out that their newest version is light and fast and much better than the old clunky version. But we no longer care; they poisoned the well. On a lesser scale, Rebit’s backup software would tell us every day how many hours it had been since we last backed up our files. It was like we were naughty, naughty. We asked them how to remove these notices and they told us they had no idea how to stop them. So we removed Rebit from the startup menu and that stopped them.

One of our biggest criteria for anti-virus programs and backup software is no-hassle protection. Keep it clean, keep it easy. We don’t want to be nagged to do updates; we don’t even want to be aware of them. We don’t want any esoteric programmers’ messages that say something like “error 43X67-2” has been encountered and this program will be shut down.” Our Avast anti-virus program just presents small box on the screen telling us it has already done an update without asking. In fact it never asks us to do anything. Without any fear marketing from them, we paid to get the pro version for extra protection. Before that we used their free version for a year or more and were quite satisfied.  MalwareBytes.org, has an excellent anti-spyware program, which is also free and we sometimes activate for a double check.

Don’t tolerate bullying market pitches – in any field. There are plenty of competitors to turn to in every area of software. We’re looking at a new security program now, and we’ll get to it below.

The risk from clicking on addresses using Vietnam’s domain name — .VN, increased recently from thirty-ninth, which would be “not very risky,” to third, which indicates very risky. Fifty-eight percent of domains with a .VN ending were deemed risky. Singapore (.SG) which was formerly one of the ten most dangerous countries of origin for Internet risk, cleaned up its act markedly and has been moved down to eighty-first.

About 6.2 percent of the 27 million websites analyzed by McAfee posed a security risk, up from 5.8 percent last year.  You can protect yourself with a good anti-virus and anti-spyware program. McAfee makes one, of course, but we use free ones from Avast.com and MalwareBytes.org.

This is pretty scary, since it means there was malware on the computer in the hotel’s “business center” and that a program had intercepted our emails. And believe us, this was a hotel that considered itself five-star.  We are going to bring our laptop if we stay there again, with all the latest security updates on it.

Free programs are the most popular security apps. Avast leads the way, followed by Avira Anti-Virus, AVG and Microsoft’s Security Essentials. We use Avast Anti-Virus (Avast.com) and an anti-spyware program called Anti-Malware, from Malwarebytes.org.

What the free programs have in common is that they’re fast and light and don’t bog down your computer. The paid versions have advantages. We upgraded to the paid versions of Avast and Anti-Malware to get more protection. Rather than having a problem cleared up after it strikes, the paid versions protect you in advance.

You can get even more protection from so-called Internet suites, but you risk slowing things down. For example, Bob will never again install any program from Symantec. TrendMicro has some new products that use very few system resources and add some useful features. In the $40 version you get all the usual anti-virus and anti-spyware stuff, plus protection against malicious links in email and instant messages. It has the advantage of storing its database of protection routines online rather than on your computer; this keeps it light and tight. The pro version is $60 and adds a file shedder, a system tuner, identity theft protection and other tools.  The Mac version is called “Smart Surfing.” Click “home and office” at trendmicro.com to see a link to free trials.

http://www.freedayofsupport.com

Even tech reporters need tech support. The most convenient kind takes place over the Internet. You give permission to a support person to fix your computer from afar. Then watch them work and learn something.

Trend Micro is offering a free day of tech support on June 15, to the first 1000 people who register at freedayofsupport.com. They can use their free day any time before September 15. Services included  are:

• Find out why your computer is running slowly.
• Are you vulnerable to security threats?
• Check Internet security, email security, and firewall settings.
• Fine-tune your anti-virus and anti-spyware software settings (for Trend Micro Internet Security users only).

To get an email reminder so you don’t forget to sign up on June 15, you can sign up now at freedayofsupport.com.

“ScareWare” is a new term for an old problem: screen messages from bad guys trying to get you to buy something you shouldn’t.

These are often messages that pop-up on your computer screen telling you you’re in trouble and you should buy some program that will fix everything. A common one tells you to buy a “registry cleaner.” It’s hard to see who really needs this. Your computer’s registry doesn’t get “dirty,” takes up very little space, and attempts to clean it can cause more harm than good. “Scareware,” according to McAfee Labs, has increased more than 600% in the last two years.

That’s not the only problem computer users face. What should you do when your email inbox is full of spam, and your computer fills up with viruses and spyware? There are programs like Kaspersky Internet Security, $25 from download.com, that handle all those problems well. We use Avast for anti-virus, Gmail to filter out spam and “Anti-Malware” to get rid of spyware.

Avast from Avast.com and “Anti-Malware” from malwarebytes.org both come in a free and paid version. With “Anti-Malware,” the only difference between the two is that the free version helps you after you have a problem and the paid version prevents problems from happening in the first place.

With this deal, McAfee gets access to 350 million potential new customers. But what do you get?  Bob is very leery of this deal because they ask you for your credit card number before giving you the “free” product.  Almost every time a company asks for your credit card number before they give you a “free” product or service, you find yourself on an automatic billing program when that free deal expires. Surprise!  You probably forgot all about it six months later, but they didn’t.

McAfeee doesn’t charge you during the first six months, but when that’s over, you’re charged $35 for a year’s subscription. That’s a 30 percent discount over the regular price.  But it still may not be a good deal.

If you take the deal, you’ll be asked to uninstall any anti-virus product you’re currently using. We’re currently using Avast anti-virus. Unlike McAfee and most other products, it never bugs you with difficult questions about what to keep and what to throw out. If it’s malware, a category that includes viruses, trojans and the like, it’s eliminated, period. You can get the basic version of Avast for  free at  Avast.com.

Yesterday, Joy’s friend Nancy, who uses McAfee, had several forms of malware on her computer. There was a huge “block or allow” message on the screen warning her of threats. But every time Nancy clicked  ”block,” the message stayed there. It turned out she had to exit completely out of the Web and then click “block,” to make the message go away. And it wasn’t at all clear what site was being blocked.

If you want to try out McAfee for yourself, go to facebook.com/mcafee and click “become a fan” or to facebook.com/security and click “protect your pc.”  Watch out for future billing.

These programs initiated 43 million attempts to prompt user installation between July 2008 and June 2009, Symantec reported.  The pitch warned users to click on some box on the screen to protect themselves from attacks that might happen any second.  Of course those who did click were immediately infected with a large group of dangerous programs collectively referred to as malware.

The most commonly reported rogue applications found during the study were “SpywareGuard 2008,” “AntiVirus 2008,” “AntiVirus 2009,” “Spyware Secure” and “XP AntiVirus.”

We have repeatedly written that we use “AVG Antivirus” and “Avira AntiVirus Personal” on our own computers. Both of these have been tested many times and both are free at download.com. The Avira program has been downloaded more than 60 million times, AVG AntiVirus more than 225 million times.

A study by the United States Secret Service, which apparently took some time off from protecting the President, found that 32% of all electronic crimes are committed by insiders.  

This goes along with regular crime, which Bob did some articles on years ago and found that criminals committing serious crimes, especially murder, nearly always knew their victims. Looking at the kind of crimes the Secret Service was talking about, it also makes sense that the perpetrators would be familiar with an organization’s computer system and how to circumvent its protection. They could be current employees or recently dismissed employees.  

This fits with the computer viruses that shut down large systems, sometimes very large systems. The virus is almost always acquired by an employee doing something foolish or simply unthinking, such as clicking on a button that says sometime seemingly harmless like “click here to verify your account.” If you don’t know the source of the information, don’t click. Which leads us right into our next topic: dangerous searches. 

Dangerous Search Terms 

A recent report by McAfee, one of the leading makers of anti-virus software, found that the most dangerous search term to use on the web is “screensavers.”  

Now who would have thought that an innocuous term like screensavers would bring up bad things, like viruses, key loggers and plain old-fashioned scams? But it makes all kinds of sense. Because first of all, screensavers, or “screen savers,” no matter how you spell it, are nearly always free. And everybody loves free stuff, so when you get to the web site and it says “click here for your free screen saver,” well, you have to click or you’re not going to get your freebie.  

The instant you click, it triggers a download of some something, and you have no idea what that something is. It could be a key logger, which will record every keystroke you make from that second forward, including the passwords you are going to type in at some time in the not too distant future, or it could be software that allows your system to be controlled from another location. Not good. 

There’s no point in being completely paranoid about this, though it’s true that even paranoids can have enemies, but a little caution is advisable. McAfee’s research found that nearly 60 percent of the web sites that came up for the search term “screensavers,” were in fact sites set up to transmit bad software, often referred to collectively as “malware,” straight into your computer. The second and third worst results came from searches for “lyrics,” which connected to potentially bad sites 26 percent of the time, and “free,” which found dangerous sites 21 percent of the time. Other dangerous search terms were “iPhone” and “games.” 

Now there’s no need to go nuts and hide in the digital closet; most sites are trustworthy. Most people also know which sites they trust.  After all, your local newspaper or news magazine is not out to cheat you. You can also use protective software. We both use a free program from AVG that posts a warning on screen if the site you are about to go to looks risky. You can get that at grisoft.com. They also sell more comprehensive protection programs. 

If you’re searching for free programs to download – which we often do, it’s best to go to sites like download.com or tucows.com, which test programs before posting them. Sites for leading computer magazines also test programs before listing them for download.