Computer Virus Scan question

[Mitchell]

Tonight, as it does every Friday evening, my Norton Antivirus did its weekly virus scan. While all came out fine, and the scan didnt find any files that needed to be deleted, or viruses, something did happen in tonight's scan that I didnt understand, and I was wondering if anyone might have an answer.
Usually, during most weekly virus scans, my Norton anti virus program will scan a minimum of 300,000, and some weeks as much as 400, 000 files. During tonight's scan, while the Virus program said the scan was "completed", the total number of files scanned came to less than 200,000 files. I didnt use the computer in any way, during the scan, as I was watching a baseball game, but I was just wondering if anyone with computer knowledge might have a reason as to why the total number of files scanned in a completed virus scan was half the amount that are scanned every other week. I know very little about computer files, or virus scans, so this is the reason for my question.
If anyone has any info regarding my question, it would be appreciated. Thank You.

Mitch

 

[Nige]

Hi Mitchell.

I assume your computer is still working ok, and that you haven't noticed anything missing from it? My guess and it is only a guess is that older system restore points have automatically been deleted making way for new restore points, and that is why 200,000 files are missing. Although it does sound a lot though. Other possiblities could be that you may of done a disk clean up, cleaning out files. If your computer is working fine, I would not worry about it too much.

 

[Mitchell]

Thanks for the replies, guys. Buggs, I've heard that Macafee is a better virus checker than Norton. I just spent like 50 bucks to put in a new subscription of Norton about a month ago, so if I can, I'd like not to change over now. I'm going to wait until next Friday, let the comp do it's scan again, and see what comes up. Two viruses and a trojan! ACK! Nice "virus scanner".
I'll probably visit a computer store sometime this week, look at virus scanners, and talk to someone. Nige, my computer is working fine. I just thought 200,000 files to be a large discrepancy. Oh, well.
Thanks again, guys. I'm going to look into this further.

Mitch

 

[Haltickling]

Wow, 200,000 files not scanned? Something similar happened to me, and it turned out that I had accidentally changed the scan settings. Instead of scanning both hard drive partitions, the scanner only scanned C:. Check the custom settings of your virus scanner, maybe the problem is there.

As I can't afford payware security now, I have to rely on free programs. I have a Zone-Alarm firewall, Lavasoft Ad-Aware, and the Bit Defender scanner, all free, and they work just fine.

The advice not to use Internet Explorer is very good. I'm using Mozilla Firefox, it's much less vulnerable to malware and also blocks pop-ups quite efficiently. The pop-up blockers in "Tool Bars" like google seem to be an invitation for trojans, so don't use them. Another thing is to avoid Outlook Express, almost all worms are designed for that.

The free thingys are not as good as a real professional antivirus program like McAffee, but a perfect alternative for me and my budget. Since I use them in combination with the above precautions, I haven't had a crash or any serious problems.

 

[Mitchell]

Actually, Iam guilty of using Internet Explorer, every day, several times a day in fact. During this year I have found that the only way I can get into the chat is to use IE. The regular AOL way takes like 10 mins for the chat to load, and kills my applet that is needed to download the chat. I also have problems downloading a new chat applet, because my computer doesnt want to accept it, so I perserve the one I have.
About the spyware issue you mentioned. I'm fairly certain that I have no spyware on my computer, because each time I go on, my AOL program has a certain application where it says "Auto Scan for spyware in progress", and it always comes up with no spyware, so I think Iam safe from that, at least it looks like Iam!

Thanks, Hal, I appreciate the advice.

Mitch

 

[Soda83pop]

The virus software I use is avast. It updates often, and the home version is free with free updates. Most of the reviews I have been reading about Norton the last couple of years have been pretty negative.

AOL is the devil.

 

[ticklishbbw]

As someone else already mentioned, check your scan settings. You may have changed something and didn't realize it. I know with McAfee I can set it to scan everything, or just program files. There's a big difference in the numbers of files it scans, if I choose program files only.

Good Luck
tbbw

 

[Tarzan]

AVG is also a good virus scanner alternative. Though their professional version is a retail product, they have a free edition that works nicely and is updated quite often. Switching to Firefox, as Haltickling suggested, is also recommended. I use it predominently, only using IE if I absolutely have to

 

[kurchatovium]

NOD32 is a little known virus scanner that works quite well. I have not tried it myself but know a few people that had. One guy told me that a friend had left his computer on for a long time with no protection and mcafee found 650 viruses, the they ran NOD32 and found another 350 or so. LOL Mcafee is a good product though that i have used, its subscription update process sucks though. Also Mitch get a firewall too if you dont already have one. 😀

 

[Mitchell]

I do have a firewall, Kurch.

Thanks again for all the advice everyone. I will see what happens with my virus update this Friday, and then if things are still remiss, consult a computer specialist.

Mitch

 

[DonnieBrasco]

MY $.002 if I may

I run my spyware once a week and I was told on good authority that I should run Spybot,Ad-aware,and one called a2 squared. Each program has found a malware file while the other hasn't. So they told me with three I should be pretty safe.If I ever find one that is impossible to rid of, I also run the programs once a month in safe mode and open my hidden files and shut down sytem restore(also good idea when running anti-virus) viruses and spyware have been known to hide in either area and you wouldnt know it because if system restore and the operating system files are hidden like they should be,well easy for a bad file to hide out in these areas.As far as not getting into the chat room I would bet someones paycheck that you are running a pop-up blocker that would possibly block the room to run its program.This sounds like overkill but I have been hit with trojans and reinstalling windows is not cool at all!
DB

 

[Limeoutsider]

I had avirus scan that said there were trojans found but then wouldnt eliminate them 😕

 

[Mitchell]

Okay, Thanks again for the info everyone. I will look into it.

Mitch