KEEP GETTING A SYSTEM ALERT WITH A BALOON SAYING THE COMPUTER HAS DETECTED A VIRUS 'CLICK HERE TO GET THE LATEST AITVIRUS GEAR'.
THIS OCCURS ABOUT EVERY 20 SECONDS.
I HAVE NORTON INTERNET SECURITY INSTALLED ON PC WITH XP WINDOWS
DONT KNOW IF RELATED TO ICON ON TASK BAR ON TH BOTTOM OF SCREEN.
Re: SYSTEM ALERT
Guy,
What icon are you referring to? Have you tried to run you virus scanner? If so what did it report?
Cheers
Re: SYSTEM ALERT
It sounds like you have the Win Antivirus Trojan.
What you need to do is google the symptoms and get the appropriate removal tool.
By that I mean, write down exactly what the warning says and add 'removal tool' to it.
I've had this many times.
You will also need a copy of Hijackthis.exe
Re: SYSTEM ALERT
From what you describe you would appear to have either of the following.
1. You have visited a site that generates a pop up window (or the site is always open and refreshes every 20 seconds) that appears to be an authentic windows dialogue box. 2. You have been infected with adware.
If 1 then set your browser to reject popups from this site. if 2 then get an adware cleaner.
PS, when closing the dialogue box use the red X in the top right hand corner, clicking on buttons within the box only tells them that you actually exist.
Re: SYSTEM ALERT
Guy,
Your system is infected with a trojan or spyware- Download and install SPYBOT and carry out a scan.
Seeing that you have an icon in your SYSTRAY, you may have problems removing it as it is in your system start-up. Safe-mode may assist in any removal.
Who does the 'balloon' allude to? You may be able to Google for other solutions.
I once had a very similar occurrence and I find it very hard to stomach some supposed AV Company using this method to get you to buy their so-called fix. IMHO, they'd be the last resort and I'd reformat before considering their offer.
Re: SYSTEM ALERT
A balloon that says "Click here TO GET the latest anti-virus gear" should tell you something. This is obviously spyware which will take you to a website which will then tell you all the (non-existent) horrors lurking in your machine and recommending all manner of costly solutions to rid yourself of viruses which don't exist. Did it specifically name the virus? It won't if it wants you to go where it wants you to go rather than using Google to find a free solution. This is the latest in internet scams and I've heard of it hitting two other people so far.
I doubt very much that any Norton (so-called) "security" is going to be of much help. Norton utilities are generally useless and intrusive as many on this forum will tell you. I use AVG-7 (free anti-virus) and ZoneAlarm (also free) with the seemingly solid Mozilla Firefox browser which itself has inbuilt blockers and I have a consistently trouble free life on the internet.
I suggest you use whatever means you have or can find to get rid of this spyware from your machine (try Spybot), scan for the (unlikely) existence of the virus that it warns you about, divest yourself of the unreliable Norton "security", using in its place one or more of the tried and tested freebies recommended by users of this forum, use a stronger browser than Internet Explorer and life will be sweet.
Paul.
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