So I haven't had a virus in a long time. Really long, like 6 years. And back then I had a McAfee or something pre-installed on the PC my parents bought, and I believe it took care of the problem pretty well.

Right now my PC's been sheisty, periodically I get pop-ups when browsing sites that never have them, like this one, and facebook. And the fake windows system errors and stuff like that (I use windows classic skin, which makes today's fake errors that much more funny) Performance has also dropped a bit, I've been lagging in WoW, which never happens. Also getting lag when browsing.

So I compared my list of processes to process library, and they seem to think one of the things I have, Isass.exe, is dangerous. At first I thought it was just adware, so I installed spybot and some other program hoping to get rid of it, but nothing. So I think I have to download the big guns.

I've been out of the loop a while, are there any great free and/or open source antivirus programs out there? I'd prefer not to screw around with the trial versions of things, because they typically make me give them my email and mess with a serial and all that bullshit.

AVG Free all the way. Its based on a commercial version so the engine and definitions are up to snuff. It also wont do weird stuff to your computer like some "free" "anti-virus"


Also: WHY THE FUCK DONT YOU HAVE ANTIVIRUS YOU FUCKING DUMB ASS!!!??? I DON'T CARE HOW CAREFULL YOU ARE, OR WHETHER YOU OPEN ATTACHMENTS, YOU NEED FUCKING ANTIVIRUS! STUFF CAN INFECT YOU EVEN IF YOU DO NOTHING AND YOUR COMPUTER DOES NOTHING!!!

That said, I make a lot of money cleaning up computers from people like you, so I don't really want all people to use their brains.

That being said, be smart and get yourself protected. If you have a bad infection, installing antivirus at this point might be like putting on a condom after you have gotten HIV and you may need to send it to a professional, that or be prepared to spend a weekend learning about viruses, worms, trojans, the removal of such things, Windows System Structure, and several programs that you will need to remove said nasty infection.

I wish you the best of luck and hope that you have the common computer cold.

Side note: Isass.exe is bad while lsass.exe is legit. They look the same in some fonts. (the bad one starts with a capital i)

AVG is ending support for AVG Free.

Avast! Free is the one I use. Catches stuff every now and then. That wouldn't happen if I were less click-happy with the links I find on /h/ though.


Also, ONE THOUSAND POSTS

You cannot read because what I am saying is that even if you are careful you can still get infected. There are very often security flaws that are found that allow people to infect you computer by simple pinging your computer with a specially crafted packet and that is totally out of your control. Don't believe me? Read up on the SQL Slammer Worm of 2003 which infected 75,000 computers in 10 minutes and effectively shut down the internet in some places and slowed it to a crawl in others. There have been cases of people using advertising services to distribute malware meaning that you can go to NFL.com and get infected, and that's happened. And don't even get me started on only opening attachments from people you know because that assumes that they are clean, and that jpg from your uncle doesn't have a payload.

There is now way to be careful. Its just like diseases, no matter how safe you are, if you are around people, you are gunna get the cold. And whats more, on people like you, "who haven't had a problem" we usually find one or two viruses, a few malware, and an ass load of spyware. And that's 98% of them, because they don't know what they are doing, if they did, they'd be using AV. You probably wouldn't have noticed either because virus writers don't want to make your system crash anymore. Its more usefull for them to think your computer is fine because as long as you do, they can steal your passwords, and you remain part of the botnet, potentially sending thousands of spam emails a day, or DDOSing government websites.

I apologize for being so harsh, I am just trying to impart upon you how stupid it is to go without AV.

ALSO: AVG Free is NOT going to be discontinued. This rumor started because AVG is ending support for AVG 7.5 (current version is 8.5 which was release a few weeks ago) and the message that it displays on 7.5 goes something like this "AVG is ending support for AVG Free 7.5" but people, who don't know that they are a few versions behind, read this as "AVG ending support for AVG Free completely." Thus rumors, and it was debunked by an AVG spokesperson.

run on redhat derived systems:

then


Then install WoW
Results may vary.

How would I know that? I am not currently stalking you.

I think a pistol duel is in order here.