quicky008
Technomancer
continue
Antivirus Guide & User Reviews.
mitraark
Decrepit
I have a "ahem" version of Windows installed in a work PC. After start up, a very brief (less than a sec) pop up flashed on the screeen. Turns out the default search engine is changed to "searchnet" something on every startup. I couldn't find any application or entries in startup regarding this. Anyone faced any similar issue and can help me with removing such stuff from the PC ?
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omega44-xt
Gear up ...
Seems like a typical virus or malware. Not sure if Win Defender works as intended on "ahem" copies. OEM Win10 keys are very cheap, use those.
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quicky008
Technomancer
run a scan in safe mode using KVRT
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SaiyanGoku
kamehameha!!
andy_65_in
Padawan
are commercial AV paid versions ok to install..versus manufacturer ones...I mean the former are cheaper as availaible in amazon etc
What manufacturer ones? If you mean microsoft defender in windows then it is good in win 10/11 latest versions.
omega44-xt
Gear up ...
Explain.
For instance, McAfee (pre-installed) is worse than Win Defender IMO. McAfee should be the first thing to uninstall. Kaspersky & BitDefender can be considered good but if you use common sense, Win Def is good enough these days.
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andy_65_in
Padawan
I mean buying paid AV thru the AV manufacturer versus websites selling it cheaper
Both are same, it is not like some physical product(cloth, shoe etc) which is manufactured differently for offline stores & online shopping sites. You only need to use the serial key from shopping site with the latest installer downloaded directly from manufacturer website for your region(e.g. kaspersky India site etc).
Nerevarine
Incarnate
SaiyanGoku
kamehameha!!
Just use windows defender + mbam free version.
vidhubhushan
Alakh Niranjan
in the past some 5-6 years back, twice i purchased box pack (1-2 year old versions) of av from local market at cheap prices. then downloaded latest version and registered with the key in the box. it was almost same price at what online keys were selling.
TigerKing
Wise Old Owl
Gen2 releases are trustworthy if you are using them otherwise clean install required in some situations.
mitraark
Decrepit
Its not mine, its in one of the placed i frequent for work, theyve alloted me the PC. Otherwise I would just have installed a Gen2 ISO on it as recommended above.
The thing doesnt cause much trouble per se, but may be it is doing some more wrongs in the background. Issue is the that machine is heavily restricted in terms of usage due to the work policy, preinstalled Norton, Trend Micro, admin rights not given, USB blocked... so the only option i have is to look around in startup/services/processes etc. i guess.
It is most likely an adware which came bundled with some free software & the reason why not detected by antivirus as many antivirus by default don't scan for PUP(potentially unwanted program)/adware. Without admin rights you can't do anything about it either.
This might help :
*www.adaware.com/blog/how-to-remove...ination,applications from your Control panel.