TerryS

Phone-a-friend...hah! That's the best!

Holy cow! That's amazing! What I meant, though, was that if people were specifying a static IP address and, therefore, all attempting connections to the same exact server, the system could go down. Assuming simple DNS round-robin and not something more complex. Though I supposed round-robin-ing the IPs provided to users on update would avoid the problem, anyhow.

I think he is saying the program asks him before it has even completed the scan. This does not happen until the end. Maybe it's his misunderstanding some message, or maybe he got the message like I did, saying that Malwarebytes was in the middle of a scan even though (I think) it was done. Either this is a bug because the scanner does not finish, or (I believe) a bug because it falsely reports the scan is not finished if you try to quit after taking some action on an item. phj42, why do you think the scan has not completed? Are you getting that pop-up message when you try to exit? Or do you still see files scanned/total listed and it has obviously not scanned them all?

Yes, indeed. It's not a good idea to install an OS which is not OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer, coming pre-installed on your computer, ) unless you have researched your hardware thoroughly online and know if you need to compile and/or install your own drivers...and in case of Linux are comfortable doing such stuff. Or just try different Linux distros until you find one that works. Often a distro might even have the right drivers available for install, but when the OS loads off the DVD it isn't loading the needed drivers. Install routines often have different success with hardware detection, too, and hardware detection was never totally reliable anyway. (Ever have to restart your computer 10 times to get it to detect new hardware?) With Windows XP and Ubuntu (Linux), you have to download a separate 64-bit version, though. With Slackware (Linux) 12.2, and probably 12.x or even earlier, you don't. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

I am only another user here, but I can answer this question for you. Malwarebytes warns you if some security settings on your computer are disabled, because malware can cause this, or you could have disabled these things yourself. FirewallDisableNotify = tells you if Microsoft Security Center has been configured not to notify you if your firewall is disabled UpdatesDisbleNotify = tells you if Microsoft Security Center has been configured not to notify you if you disabled Automatic Updates for Windows Many anti-spyware/malware programs will alert on this, just to let you know and make sure nothing happened that you didn't authorize! If you know you chose these settings, there is no cause for worry. If you didn't, then you should choose to fix the items, and read the Malwarebytes log, and post it if you need help with it.

Can you enable it again, and if so, does it stay enabled? This assumes you use Windows XP (I forget the name of the menus and applet for your connections in Windows Vista, as I only use it occasionally, and don't install it at home): Click "Start > Control Panel" Double-click "Network Connections" Depending on the type of connection, you should see something like "Local Area Connection (disabled)" If the connection is disabled, right-click it Click "Enable" in the pop-up menu If you want to give yourself a connection-status icon in the Notification Area of your Taskbar: In, the same Network Connections applet, right-click the connection Select "Properties" On the "General" tab, check these two boxes: Show icon in notification area when connected Notify me when this connection has limited or no connectivity [*]Click "Ok" Reboot and see if it stays enabled. That said, you might want to do some scans, anyway. Not all malware causes computer slowdowns!

Do you get an error like this when you try to close the program? It seems like a bug.

Slackware 12.2 has 64-Bit support. http://www.slackware.org Anything with a new kernel "should" support it, technically speaking, but drivers included/loaded would often be distro-dependent.

A big thing that prevents me from getting infections in the first place, though it does not qualify as security software, is the Firefox web browser with very important add-ons: NoScript -- prevents websites from running any script or flash content unless you explicitly allow the domain; you can allow temporarily or permanently; also, it puts strong emphasis on preventing cross-site scripting attacks which are often used in "drive-by downloads" of malware when you visit an infected website; the idea is to only allow trusted sites you have experience with and who you feel have a legitimate reason to run a script (i.e., you are shopping and it needs to track your shopping cart info); obviously the element of judgement comes into play here AdBlock Plus -- prevents most (but not all) adds not caught by pop-up blockers, including flash content; you can explicitly allow all ads and blocked video on a page or even just a single item AdBlock Plus filterset.G -- to keep AdBlock Plus updated with the latest filters Some people don't like Firefox because they think it's bloated and the prefer the (definitely not bloated) Google Chrome, but I don't buy that it's bloated because you decide to install the add-ons you want or none. Also the add-on Fasterfox speeds up Firefox, but you need to be careful with the settings (read user reviews first).

Disregarding the possibility that an infection itself may be causing the computer to become progressively slower, start with simple stuff. How much RAM do you have? What size is/are the hard drive(s)? What is your CPU speed? What is the architecture? How fast do your hard drives spin? On this computer a "full scan" takes me about an hour-and-a-half (not just the first time): 2 GB RAM AMD Athlon XP 2400+ 2.0 GHz 40 GB 1st hard disk drive, 5400 rpm 32-bit 120 BG second hard disk drive, 7200 rpm On this one, in spite of the large disks, it only takes about 20 minutes! 4 GB RAM (incorrectly identified in another post as 8!) AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5200+ 2.71 GHz 64-bit (but running older 32-bit XP) 300 GB 1st hard disk (210 GB not used for Windows, so effectively 290), 7200 rpm 500 GB 2nd hard disk, 7200 rpm

I read briefly, a few weeks ago, that they didn't expect it to be so big as originally feared because ISPs were able to somewhat block the spread with special real-time detection software for the behavior of data travelling though their system. Apparently, they did well.

On the upside -- just record the IP with every update to Malwarebytes program or infection database, so it's always current. On the downside -- being a new Malwarebytes user, I am not familiar with its user base. But if there are a lot of users, this could bring their updating system down, if every user was specifiying the same IP. With DNS, you can round-robbin the IPs so multiple, mirrored servers can handle a high volume of requests...if that is what MB does. I like the idea, too.

Also, to scan for missing Windows patches (very important if you manually patch) you can use SiSoftware Sandra. (It does not check other software.) This sure beats manually checking for missing patches every week, and the list of missing patches links directly to the Knowledge Base article for each patch. There is an evaluation ("lite") version of Sandra. You can download [sandra/b] from SiSoftware: http://www.sisoftware.net/index.html?dir=&...langx=en&a= or from cNet: http://download.cnet.com/SiSoftware-Sandra...4-10556571.html If you are running Windows 2000, however, only one version I found will work (2002) and SiSoftware, along with many download sites, only host the current version, because SiSoftware stops support for old versions. Beware that many websites copy the marketing information from the SiSoftware site, saying it can be used on Win2K -- but that is not true of new versions! Others continue to link to the SiSoftware website but advertise the older versions, which you can't get there! Doing a search, I found a few websites that have the 2002 download, though none of them are where I got it, and I am unfamiliar with them and can't vouch for the integrity of their downloads. I don't know if this overlaps with Secunia, or if Secunia only checks user applications and not the OS. Sandra is an extensive benchmarking program, and checks only the OS, not applications for available updates -- so maybe there is some use in having both apps. I wouldn't know.

I also think MBAM is one of the faster scanners out there. (I just began using it with the current version.) I always do a full scan (and have several large drives), but the scanner starts without any delay. It also runs speedily on my 8G computer, and in a reasonable time on the one with 2G of RAM. I only do scans when I'll be away from the computer for a bit, but I pay attention to the speed, though.