Information about viruses and antivirus.
Lately there have been so much viruses going around in e-mails especially being transmits as file attachments.  The prob with email viruses is gonna just get worse and badder.  I do not know why virus writers like to make everyone's life miserable.  Just be careful when opening mail from unfamiliar sources.  Some viruses like Klez emails copies of itself to everyone in the address book and other  virusus uses its own mail engine to email itself to everyone and every single email address it can find in contact list on Ims, address book etc etc. Alot of time people have no idea if they accidentally infected themselves so they are not aware their computer is infected.  Someone, I know, did not realize she was infected and she ended up reformatting her hard drive. 

Virus information.

Virus is not something you can catch like bad cold it is what we refer to as computer virus bent on messing up puter and sending copies of itself to everyone's address book and using their contacts in address book to send itself to people and poor unsuspecting person would open up mail and infects themselves.  Some people (no offense) are clueless about how and when NOT to open up e-mails. 

Tips:

1. Buy yourself good antivirus software or download free one like AVG antivirus.  Select AVG 7.0 Free I can not recommend McAfee or Norton but they are just average antivirus program.  AT the time when I recommended Norton didn't have any probs with it till it messed up my puter at shutdown and wouldn't let me log on to MSN IM if I didn't update the Net Security (Norton) so I dumped Norton for good as well dumping McAfee.

2. Run backup antivirus scanner such as Trend Micro Housecall. It is online virus scanner which works great as a backup to your current antivirus software or else your antivirus software is too old to update the virus file detection. There are also other antivirus programs for scanning online as well. 

3. Update your antivirus software OFTEN I cannot stress enough to tell you to update often enough cuz there are about thousands of viruses floating all over the Net.

4. Do not accuse anyone of sending you infected e-mail.  Person may not be aware that he/she is infected.

5. If you suspect someone had sent you infected e-mails, check the headers (will give you that how to in a min) and check where it is from and inform him/her that his/her puter is infected.  In Outlook Express: RIGHT CLICK on the e-mail (do not open) then select PROPERTIES and dialog should pop up and select DETAILS TAB then look at the return path (where mail is from at the very top)  and send that person e-mail telling them about the virus.

6. So called virus warning received in e-mails, first check them out before forwarding them to people.  False hoaxes does more harm than good.  Go to site like Truthorfiction or Snopes to see if it is a real warning or not before passing it on to people.

7. Do not open unfamilar e-mails unless you have scanned them for viruses.

8.  YOU CANNOT GET VIRUS FROM A PLAIN TEXT E-MAILS or HTML E-MAILS (unless it is embedded or accompanies with attached file or program).  Scan attached e-mail with antivirus software before opening them.

I hope these are helpful for you.

BROADBAND (CABLE, DSL ETC) users:

1. It is wise to have good firewall program to keep people (hackers/criminal hackers/script kiddies) out of your computer if you have always on connection. I recommend Zonealarm from Zonelabs.  They do have freebie firewall which is good and I recommend.  There are other good firewall programs also. 

SPAM

Spam is defined as UNSOLICTED junk email that means emails like quick cure for something or get rich quick schemes and porn.

So many people do not like do emails much these days due to large amount of unsolicted emails.  There are lots of ways of reducing amounts of junk emails you get in email.  Some people have seperate accounts for each different purpose.  Some people have an account for public email anyone can email them and have private email account for family, friends and trusted contacts. 

Many ISPs and email services use different type of filters.  Some use Blacklist meaning using server based number listing to reject email.  Personally I think using blacklist service like Spamcop is BAD IDEA as some legit mail get zapped.  For example for some weird reasons I cannot get email from MSN groups emails which ticks me off big time I find it easier to read my email in Outlook Express then having go to site to read them.  Also it is faster to reply to email.  Chances are it is more of MSN groups fault than my ISP fault but chance are that my ISP may have set filters too HIGH.  One thing I would love to see if they let us review junk mail folders like Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail would allow us review emails before ZAPPING them and train filters ourselves.

1. DONT RAT on people about legit mail as spam as you RUIN it for everyone on the network cuz what may be spam to a person who don't like inspirational emails and it is not spam to those who like inspirational emails.  It has happen to me I was only send an email to my buddies about Advice from Dalai Lama someone THOUGHT it was spam and reported me to my ISP.  I was upset naturally cuz if people have beef about my email I rather them tell it to me via email or IM I would gladly honor their request for removal off mail list instead of complaining to ISP about it!  The prob is some people have no idea what the difference between legit or spam email. 

2. Get good spam filtering program and TRAIN and request that your ISP let you REVIEW JUNK mail folder on your account.  I wish mine would let me review junk folder so I can train the spam filter to let me get mail I would like w/out not be able to receive it like MSN groups.

3. Use your public account for email address when do online shopping or playing games.  Use private email for your friends and family or mailing lists cuz most mailing list services have policy of not selling your email to 3rd party.  If you are not sure of mailing list just use your public email. 

Hope these help.

Any questions feel free to email me.

Page updated/revised on April 25, 2005.