SI Money Savers

Today’s Tech Thrifty Thursday (TTT) post is a guest post by my husband.  His regular tech blog can be found at  garyfarnam.org:

You’re sitting in front of your computer, paying bills, chatting with friends, playing games, or just reading an interesting blog.  And then what happens?  Popups start appearing telling you that “you’ve got x amount of infections, click HERE to clean up your computer”.

If this is not a software that you’ve installed, then you’ve got some sort of spyware/malware.  So now what?  A trip to the local computer shop to drop 50 bucks on a system cleanup, or head to Wal-mart to spend $20 or more for an antispyware/antimalware software title?

Maybe not.  What if you could fight these types of infections for free?  You can!  These are 2 very popular titles that I have personally used when working on clients’ computers to clean off spyware/malware infections:

1. Malwarebytes (Free edition)-from malwarebytes.org. This free utility is easy to install, and easy to run to clean up your Windows based PC.  Simply download and install the software, let it do it’s update, and then do a FULL system scan.
   
2. Superantispyware (Free Edition)-from superantispyware.com is another great title to add to your antispyware arsenal.  Simply download and install the software, click Yes to get the necessary updates, move through the default prompts,  and do a scan of your computer.  There’s even an option to protect your normal homepage (browser hijacker infections will change your home page to some other unwanted page…this protects against it).
   

Keep in mind that no antispyware/antimalware catches EVERY possible infection since new threats are created daily.  However, each of these 2 titles will most likely surprise you with the number of infections that it finds.  It is not uncommon to find over 100 infections on a PC.

I highly recommend downloading and installing BOTH of these titles to see if one catches items that the other didn’t.

This is just one more (techie) way to help you save your hard earned cash!

If you’re brave enough, comment on this post and let me know how many infections the above software found on YOUR computer

(this post can also be found at garyfarnam.org)