Dianne wrote:

<<
*I just had a virus on my computer.

I wasn't able to get into the programs I tried like Office 2010 programs,
and firefox.  It turned AVG and Windows Defender off.>>

Sounds like it might have been one of the 80 or so variants of Fake Alert.

Provided you regularly keep Malwarebytes updated (the free version has to 
be updated manually), you should have been able to eliminate your "virus" 
by running a Malwarebytes full scan in Safe Mode.

AVG lost its way a long time ago---just about every week I see computers 
using AVG as their sole protection which are full of spyware and trojans. 
As the Fake Alert (which has similar symptoms as you mention) is not 
strictly speaking a virus, some antivirus programs won't see it.

This nasty piece of malware has been around for quite some time now, and 
some forms can leave a real mess behind when they are removed.  McAfee has 
a free "FakeAlert" removal toll available for download which does a good 
job of detection and removal.

Whenever you have had any sort of infection, you should turn disable System 
Restore, as lot of malware can resurrect itself from System Restore at a 
later date. Once you have disabled SR, you can then re-enable it again. 
Being a protected system file, SR may not be accessible to some anti-virus 
programs.

Up till now, my first choice of antivirus protection has been Avira, but 
they've just come up with a new version with is no longer compatible with 
Malwarebytes, so I think they've rather shot themselves in the foot in no 
uncertain terms.  I tried to install the new version with first 
uninstalling Malwarebytes (not following their advice, tut, tu) and it 
ended up with neither working and neither being capable of being 
uninstalled. If anyone is in that situation (and I know a lot of people 
are), Avira have a special Avira registry cleaner which you have to 
download and run to get rid of the new version before you can reinstall the 
old version.

If you haven't already done so, I suggest you update and run a full 
Malwarebytes scan in Safe Mode. This gives any security scan a much better 
chance of finding the nasties, as usually they can't protect themselves if 
they aren't running.

Your virus could be any one of thousands, so I'm only guessing. It wouldn't 
have to be new.

Your major worry is:  Where did you pick this up from, and will it 
return?  Any idea how it got into your system?

Do you use Google's Chrome browser?  It has a very good blacklist of known 
bad websites containing malware and will warn you before you enter any such 
site. That's just one of many possibilities.

Don Penlington

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