Anti-Virus Scanner, Suggestions?

[STLRamsFan]

Yea, my dad decided to install Microsoft Security Essentials when I got my laptop last year and I got some big problems because of it. The Viewpoint Virus managed to get on my system (thanks fake facebook sites) and now I'm having problems getting rid of the bullshit pop-ups and the "Generic Host Process for Win32 Services" constantly crashing. To make matters worse, I can't update the scanner (claims that it wasn't able to check for definition updates, yea bullshit) and all Malwarebytes could find was the "Rouge.Thinkpoint" just today. Considering I just got rid of it just earlier, it's problem something to do with that.

So what I'm asking is, what scanner should I get for this thing? I'm going into safemode, again, so anything will help. Trying to keep the thing up and running since I got college apps I need to fine tune....

[Futzy]

Why the fuck do people still deal with this shit. If you can't browse safely just back up your shit and format.

[Limited]

Why the fuck do people still deal with this shit. If you can't browse safely just back up your shit and format.
Because 'backing your shit up' may copy the virus over and make the reformat redundant.

I suggest you download and run AVG AntiVirus Free Edition 2011, it may be able to clean it however it is likely you'll have to reformat to make 100% sure its gone.

Also make sure you do a rootkit scan, the AVG version has one in it.

[STLRamsFan]

I'm not gonna reformat my stuff every single time I make a mistake on typing "www.facebook.com"... Only a year old anyway.

Edit: Thanks John, yea I'm sure I'm probably gonna need to reformat at some point. But at the moment I need my information long enough to get through the next several months. All my stuff is in boxes in a storage house until my folks move into their new house.

[Phopojijo]

Because 'backing your shit up' may copy the virus over and make the reformat redundant.Doing it wrong.

...
...

Don't back up your programs, just your data. Technically it's possible to inject a virus into data if they knew which version of the program you were using to open it and rewrote your data to include a data-execution exploit to take over it and use it to install a new copy of the virus.

But no... that's basically never done unless you're being spearphished... and the spearphisher knows unpatched exploits for the programs you're using... which an antivirus almost guaranteed will not pick up anyway.

Antivirus programs really just prevent you from doing something stupid that it happens to know about.

1) Patch Windows and all your programs ASAP (if a patch is released... people know what to exploit for those without patches)
2) Keep a router in front of your computer to prevent unsolicited traffic from reaching your computer because you should only allow open ports to programs you know.
3) Don't do anything stupid. Think before you allow things to run.

THEN AND ONLY THEN

4) Use an antivirus program to POSSIBLY catch malware that you launched either by zero-day exploits, running data on unpatched programs, forwarding ports (DMZ is basically uber-port-forward) to programs that can be exploited, or by running unsafe programs to begin with.

[Limited]

So what happens if rams unwittingly downloaded an exe that had a virus, or a PDF. Which didnt get picked up with a file scanner, and which he will then back up. And then later down the line he may run again and get infected.

[arbiter901]

These 2 ESET tools helped me on a similar problem not too long ago http://www.eset.com/download/free-antivirus-utilities
Hope they help you.

[Futzy]

So what happens if rams unwittingly downloaded an exe that had a virus, or a PDF. Which didnt get picked up with a file scanner, and which he will then back up. And then later down the line he may run again and get infected.
Use an organizational system to prevent that from happening. I format every few months. It takes me two hours max to get it running with all my old programs and personal data backed up. If you know which file it was or where it was located, don't copy it. Don't delete your data from the drive after you copy it so that you will have a backup for next time. Partitioning the drive to have windows be on its own and separate from your personal data makes everything so much easier.

[Phopojijo]

So what happens if rams unwittingly downloaded an exe that had a virus, or a PDF. Which didnt get picked up with a file scanner, and which he will then back up. And then later down the line he may run again and get infected.If it's an EXE he runs later... ... like I said, don't backup programs. Download them again from trusted sources. I don't care if you were duped to install something once, or the same thing multiple times, you screwed up and a virus scanner may or may not catch it... so watch what you do.

If it's a PDF or other data file... it would have to be a pretty nasty bug to be in the wild (since unless you're being spearphished by someone who's willing to give up various zero-day exploits on you... it's in the wild) yet NOT patched all that time... unless you don't patch.

And in both cases, a virus scanner still may not catch the attempt... sucks a varying amount of computer resources... possibly costs money on a subscription basis... and occasionally has a false-positive and cripples Windows or another program.