We’ve shared some of our best tips for dealing with malware over the years, and now it’s your turn! Share your favorite tips for protecting against, or getting rid of viruses and other types of malicious software.

Unfortunately, if you’re a PC user it’s a given that you have to play defense against various forms of Malware. We’ve written several articles showing how to get rid of viruses and other forms of malware over the years using various strategies.

We have some excellent articles explaining how to get rid of Advanced Virus Remover, Antivirus Live, Internet Security 2010, and Security Tool – all of which disguise themselves as legit antivirus apps.

Now we turn it over to you to share your favorite tips and tricks for defending against malicious infections. If your computer has been infected, what steps did you take to get rid of it and clean up your machine?

Leave a comment below and join in the discussion!

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If you have a PC infected with Security Tool, you’re probably reading this article so you can understand how to get rid of it. Thankfully we’ve got the instructions to help you get rid of this virus.

Security Tool is just one of many fake antivirus applications like Antivirus Live, Advanced Virus Remover, Internet Security 2010, and others that hold your computer hostage until you pay their ransom money. They tell you that your PC is infected with fake viruses, and prevent you from doing anything to remove them.

This particular virus blocks you from doing most things, like Task Manager…

It also gives you loads of error messages that just seem to pop up constantly.

And worse, it blocks you from running malware removal tools:

First we’ll walk through the general steps that usually apply, but you can skip down to read the specific steps that we used to remove this virus.

Removing Rogue Fake Antivirus Infections (General Guide)

There’s a couple of steps that you can generally follow to get rid of the majority of rogue antivirus infections, and actually most malware or spyware infections of any type. Here’s the quick steps:

• Try to use the free, portable version of SUPERAntiSpyware to remove the viruses.
• If that doesn’t work, reboot your PC into safe mode with networking (use F8 right before Windows starts to load)
• Try to use the free, portable version of SUPERAntiSpyware to remove the viruses.
• Reboot your PC and go back into safe mode with networking.
• If that doesn’t work, and safe mode is blocked, try running ComboFix. Note that I’ve not yet had to resort to this, but some of our readers have.
• Install MalwareBytes and run it, doing a full system scan. (see our previous article on how to use it).
• Reboot your PC again, and run a full scan using your normal Antivirus application (we recommend Microsoft Security Essentials).
• At this point your PC is usually clean.

Those are the rules that normally work. Note that there are some malware infections that not only block safe mode, but also prevent you from doing anything at all. We’ll cover those in another article soon, so make sure to subscribe to How-To Geek for updates (top of the page).

Removing Security Tool

Since the above steps don’t always work, and Security Tool seemed to do a pretty good job of killing the malware removal tools I tried to use, I found another method to kill the virus off so I could begin the work of removing it.

First, we’ll need to know the username—if you aren’t sure what that is, right-click on the Start button and choose Open, then you can see it right in the location bar:

Next, open up the Start Menu, and then click the Run button (or use the Win+R shortcut key), and then type in the following command, substituting your own username if it is something other than administrator.

taskkill /f /fi “username eq administrator”

Note: If it doesn’t kill the virus the first time, you might have to use it again. Don’t be alarmed when your start menu disappears.

If all went well, the virus is dead and so is everything else including your start menu. Use the Ctrl+Shift+Esc shortcut key combination, and then go to File –> Run, and type in explorer to re-open the start menu and taskbar.

Note: If you find that the virus still isn’t dead, you can repeat the steps again.

Use SUPERAntiSpyware to Clean the Malware

Now that we’ve killed off all those processes, we’ll get to removing the actual malware from the system by downloading SUPERAntiSpyware and installing it. You should be able to grab the full version, or you can use the portable variety that we’ve already recommended.

If you grabbed the full version, make sure to use the Check for Updates button, and then click the Scan Your Computer button… make sure to perform a Complete Scan, and select all of your drives.?

Once it’s done, it’ll let you remove them all in a click, and then prompt you to reboot. Job isn’t done, however!

Install Malwarebytes and Scan?

Next you’ll want to install MalwareBytes and run it, making sure to run a full scan. The main reason to do this is because there’s no way a single malware removal tool can know about every single piece of malware out there, and you may as well make sure your system is clean.

Install Microsoft Security Essentials

You should definitely install Microsoft Security Essentials and run another full scan once you’re done.

Note: If you used a thumb drive at any point during this process, you should make sure and scan that as well—I’ve had viruses hop over to the thumb drive, ready to infect the next machine.

What About You? Had any Virus-Killing Experiences?

Have you had any experience lately killing this virus, or other similar ones? Let us know in the comments, or feel free to email into the tips line at tips@howtogeek.com with your best method for killing these viruses. We’d love to hear your expert feedback!

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If you’ve got a PC infected with malware, spyware, or rogue/fake antivirus applications, the best tool for removing them is the free SUPERAntiSpyware Portable edition. Here at How-To Geek HQ, this is the tool we use to clean nasty infections like Antivirus Live.

You might wonder why a portable version is so important… the problem is that the worst malware infections block you from installing malware removal software, and even if you manage to get it installed, most of the time when you try and launch it, you’ll get an error like this one:?

Note: that’s a real screenshot from a real virus that we cleaned with SUPERAntiSpyware Portable.

SUPERAntiSpyware Portable solves this problem by not only giving you a completely portable version of the application, which consists of a single file you can copy to your USB drive without requiring installation, but it also automatically gives you a random filename so the malware can’t detect it as easily.

You should note that when you download the application, it includes all the latest updates as of when you downloaded it.

Sidebar Geek Note

If you’ve had a lot of experience cleaning viruses, you’ll probably note that you could always run SUPERAntiSpyware as a portable application by installing it to a thumb drive, but the updates didn’t automatically come along with it.

Some of us were also using a hack method involving a batch file and setting environment variables to make sure the updates were installed on the thumb drive, but thankfully the new version fixes the problem by automatically including them. The really ironic thing is that I’d written an article scheduled for next week on how to do just that. Oh well, this is much better anyway.

Using SUPERAntiSpyware Portable

Once you’ve launched the application on an infected machine, you should see a welcome screen, and you can just click the button to start it up.

Pick your language…

And just like that, you’re in the main interface. If you haven’t used the regular SUPERAntiSpyware before, you should click the Scan your Computer button—though if you’ve had it sitting on your system for a while you might want to use the update check first.

Select the locations to scan, and choose to Perform Complete Scan (there’s no point in a quick scan on an infected machine).

The application will scan through the system and find anything bad on the system, and then let you remove it all easily. Note: this is a screenshot from an infected machine that we successfully cleaned using SUPERAntiSpyware.

So there you have it, a full endorsement from How-To Geek for SUPERAntiSpyware. I have personally used it to clean at least a dozen machines infected with really terrible rogue/fake antimalware applications.

Note: SUPERAntiSpyware is not an anti-virus software, and is meant for removing spyware and rogue applications that hold your PC for ransom. You still need Microsoft Security Essentials for your real-time protection.

Download SUPERAntiSpyware Portable Scanner from superantispyware.com

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Revo Uninstaller Pro has all of the features you enjoy in the free version plus a lot more.

Revo Uninstaller Pro builds on its free version with the Pro version that includes several extra features. It will list the installed programs and components for all current users. It provides a choice of views and information on program properties, registry entries and links to the manufacturer’s website.

There is a search option that find installed apps by typing in the first few letters of the name. It scans before and after uninstalling programs to find extra files and registry entries left behind by the program’s default uninstaller.

Read the full Review at How-To Geek Reviews

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If you or somebody you know was recently infected because they were tricked into opening a fake shipping label in an email, there’s a quick and easy way to get rid of it. At least, these are the steps that worked on our test machine.

The email would have come in with an attachment named something like UPS_invoice_NR34073.zip, with the following text:

Dear customer!

The courier company was not able to deliver your parcel by your address. Cause: Error in shipping address. You may pickup the parcel at our post office personaly! Please attention! The shipping label is attached to this e-mail.

Please print this label to get this package at our post office.

Naturally, this is a virus that causes your machine to repeatedly reboot itself.

Luckily, there’s a quick and easy fix.

Fixing the Fake UPS Tracking Nmber Virus

When your PC reboots again, hit the F8 key right before Windows starts so you can access the boot options, and then choose Safe Mode.

Once it starts up into Safe Mode, open the Run box and type in shell:startup to get straight to the startup folder, and then delete the file named raryp32.exe from the folder.

You should be able to reboot your machine at this point, and get back into your system. Make sure to run a full virus scan at this point! If you don’t have an anti-virus application, we recommend the free Microsoft Security Essentials.

Note: These are the steps that worked for us on a test machine here at the office. Viruses change over time, so the same steps may not work for you.

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Have you been waiting for that “Read It Later” extension goodness in Google Chrome? Now you can create “Read Later Lists” with the Local Read Later extension.

Installation

Adding the extension is quick and easy but you will need to confirm the installation before you can finish adding Local Read Later to Chrome.

As soon as the installation has finished you will see your new “Toolbar Button” and a brief extension management message. At this point you will need to go into the options to decide how “Saved Websites” are handled after you click on them in the drop-down list.

The only way to access the “Options” is through the “Chrome Extensions Page”…

These are the options for Local Read Later. At the top is the option that will have a large effect on how the extension works for you. If you leave it enabled (default setting) then each “Saved Website” that you click on in the drop-down list is automatically deleted. That is good if you no longer need the link but if you accidentally click on it…ouch.

Disabling the option will leave all websites in the list even if you click on them. How do you get rid of them then you may ask? That is what the “Pages to read (JSON)” text area is for. You can manually delete individual drop-down list entries (or all of them automatically by clicking on “Reset All”). The list can also be copied, saved externally, and restored at a later time if needed (definitely nice).

Local Read Later in Action

Ok, so you have found a website that you want to read later…how do you add it to the list? Use the keyboard shortcut “Ctrl + Alt + R” and the website is instantly added to the list. You will see a small red blinking box with the text “NEW” in it for a couple of seconds before it transforms into a modified count “box”.

A closer look at the “Toolbar Button” and “Saved Website Count”.

Another website, another “Ctrl + Alt + R” to add it to the list…

Here is our example list now that we are starting to fill it up a little bit.

Curious about how the “Pages to read (JSON)” text area looks now? Here it is with our two websites added to it…

Time to try the saved links out. Open the drop-down list and click on the listing that you would like to view…

The webpage will be opened in a new tab and the listing will be gone from the drop-down list (unless you disabled the removal feature).

Conclusion

This extension is still in the early stages of development but if you have been waiting for “Read It Later” functionality in Chrome then you should definitely give Local Read Later a try.

Links

Download the Local Read Later extension (Google Chrome Extensions)

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You might not be a Keyboard Ninja, but would like to be able to navigate through Windows with the mouse more quickly. You can make mouse navigation faster by increasing the pointer speed and using the “Snap To” option? available in XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

To activate these features click on Start then Control Panel and click on the Mouse icon.

In the Mouse Properties window click on the Pointer Options tab. Now increase the pointer speed and check the box next to Enhance pointer precision…this seems to come in really handy with touch pads on laptops. Under “Snap To” check the box next to Automatically move pointer to the default button in a dialog box.

Just keep in mind that with these settings the pointer will move faster on the screen, and will go directly to the default button in a dialog box. If you’re click happy, you might end up clicking “Yes” instead of “No” in some situations. It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you do, you’ll be flying through Windows a lot faster. This is one of the first things I setup when using a new computer.

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Would you like those “Fav-Icon Sized Pinned Tabs” planned for the future Firefox 4.0 release now? Then you will definitely want to take a look at the App Tabs extension.

App Tabs in Action

You can see how much room three tabs are taking up in the “Tab Bar” and if we want these tabs to reopen the next time we start Firefox then we would have to set them as “Homepages”. They could also be saved to a folder on the “Bookmarks Bar” and reopened manually. But if they only need to be “saved back” for a short time both methods can be kind of inconvenient.

As soon as you install the extension you can start creating fav-icon sized tabs that are pinned to the “Tab Bar”. You can use either your mouse to perform a “click action” (i.e. double click) or access the “Tab Context Menu” and select “App Tab”. Instant satisfaction…

These five App Tabs and the “New Tab Button” are taking up less space than one regular tab in our browser. That is definitely condensed!

And the nice thing about the extension is that any webpages that have been turned into App Tabs will reopen the next time you start your browser. Here you can see our five in the process of loading right after a restart…

There they are…ready to go. As soon as we are done with them all that we have to do is turn them back into regular tabs…no fussing around with homepage settings or bookmarks.

Options

The options are very easy to sort out. All that you need to do is choose the “Tab Mouse-Clicking Style” for creating or removing App Tabs and deselect any of the three other options that you do not meet your needs.

These are the choices available for clicking on your tabs.

Conclusion

If you don’t want to wait until Firefox 4.0 becomes available to start enjoying “Fav-Icon Sized Pinned Tabs”, then you should definitely install this extension. Quick, easy, and very nice…

Links

Download the App Tabs extension (Mozilla Add-ons)

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Another Friday is here and today it’s time to play a flash game on the boss’s time. Today we take a look at Right 2 Point, which is a free flash game where you need to click and point to kill the baddies before they get you.

Right 2 Point

At the main page you can start a game right away or read the story behind it.

When you begin a new game it goes through a short story that explains your character and a bit of the story. Luckily you can skip the intro so you don’t have to watch it every time you play.

The Tazering Goons start walking toward you and “taze” you with their fingers. You need to control the mouse and left-click to kill them before they get to you.

As you continue on you advance levels. The meters at the top show your Finger Skills and there is a radar at the upper right corner that shows Goons approaching.

Some of the Goons can be killed with body shots and others need to be hit in the head. You can also slow them down when the clock icon is in front of them.

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If the Tazering Goons get the best of you, you can play again or invite some friends to play as well.

This game is a lot of fun and as a funny story, with a cool rock music sound track. Start off the new year right and waste time at work with this fun first person pointer until the bell rings.

Play Right 2 Point

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There are a lot of services these days that let you store files in “the cloud” and access them from virtually anywhere. These services are extremely handy, but what if you need a mobile operating system as well? Today we take a look at a couple of online operating systems that let you store your files and work on them as well.

Online operating systems are a good solution if you have say a Mac at home and PC at work. Or maybe certain features of Windows aren’t available on different machines you work on during the day. There are a lot of different scenarios where an online operating system could come in handy. Here we take a look at two such apps which have a lot of functionality and are free to use.

G.ho.st

This is a worthy free Web OS that gives you 15GB of storage and offers an office suite (powered by Zoho), sharing and collaboration, and access to your documents on a mobile device. The OS runs in a separate window of your browser and has a lot of neat functionality. Everything you do is saved and will be exactly the same no matter what computer you use to log into your account. The Go button acts like the Start menu on Windows and gives you access to all of the available apps and other utilities.

You can upload individual files, use the bulk uploader to transfer folders and large amounts of data, and they also offer a sync feature that will keep data on all of your machines and the G.ho.st OS synchronized. Another cool feature is getting 5GB of extra storage space for each friend or colleague you get to sing up for the service.

They offer the internal G.ho.st web browser which you could use as a security tool if you want to visit less than reputable sites without affecting your actual system.

It’s not all business either. There are some fun utilities included like a music player, it’s own email system, and links to social sites and games.

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G.ho.st Lite lets you access your documents and basic features from your mobile device.

Glide OS

The next one we’ll take a look at is Glide OS which offers a free account and has 20GB of storage and up to 6 different users. It offers a lot of the same functionality of G.ho.st with their own unique interface and other features.

You can change the layout to Glide HD which allows easier navigation to the different services and features.

There are different available office features that allow you to create documents and presentations and collaborate with others as well.

Here is an example of working on a Word document inside Glide OS.

You can go through different themes and customize your desktop.

Conclusion

Other advantages of a Web OS are there is nothing to install, no Antivirus to worry with, and files and documents are available anywhere you have a web connection. Also you don’t need to worry a whole lot about a machines specs, but rather the speed of your Internet connection. There are a few other online operating systems to choose from like iCloud, and each one has different features. You might want to try each of them out to find the one that suites your needs. If you’re constantly moving from computer to computer to get work done, you may want to check out a Web OS. If nothing else, they are geeky and fun to play with.

Gh.os.t Web Operating System

Glide OS Web Operating System

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