Page 1 of Anti Virus/Spyware and Apple Recommendations

A neighbours PC running WINXP was so badly infected with spy ware that his friend
Re-formatted his hard-drive and installed Win2000 with Norton Anti-Virus.
This is now so badly infected that it's now unusable.
Norton highlights various problems among them 'Spybot' but does not remove them.

I have tried running PANDA anti-virus that I have on disc but that did not find anything perhaps because we cannot get onto the Internet (via recently installed Bulldog Broadband) to get the Latest definitions.
I am not aware of any Firewall protection on the PC! - Unless the free version of Norton has something included?

So the upshot of this is :-
He has nothing that important on the PC, so is prepared to re-format and install W2000 PRO again.
I would appreciate any advice in trying to prevent the same situation happening again -
Particularly Firewall / Anti-virus software (preferably freeware).

P.S. He is about to start his own business creating Videos to train Media personnel
And is considering getting an Apple-Mac - primarily for Video Editing.
Any advice as to what would be most suitable would also be appreciated.

Thanks Ron

Re: Getting a mac for video editing, does your neighbour have a budget in mind? You can get away with an iMac for video editing, but it lacks the expansion of a Power Mac, so if you wanted to change the video card, add a lot of RAM, and add internal HDD, you`re better off with a Power Mac. All PM are dual-processor and start at 2GHz, going to 2.7GHz. These do not come with displays, so one will need to be priced separately, unless he wants to use his existing PC display. Look about spending £1349 on the entry level PM. A top of the line iMac comes in around £1200 with 20" display. These are very, very good. Nice and fast too. All iMac/Power Macs are 64-bit with Mac OSX10.4 (64-bit OS).

Software wise, iMovie comes bundled with it, I`d recommend at least getting Final Cut Express HD and when he becomes a power user, upgrading to Final Cut Studio. Get as much RAM as possible too.

Check out Apple.com for more info/case studies. Also, pop into your nearest Apple Store/reseller for hands on advice and demos.

HTH

Anil
___________________________________________________
Anil Khedun
Reviewer, DVD Reviewer
The UK`s BIGGEST Online DVD Magazine!

Ronof9,

I can`t help with the Apple, but I use all of the following free security software:

AVG7 - Antivirus
ZoneAlarm - Firewall
PestPatrol
Spybot Search and Destroy
Ad-Aware SE Personal
SpywareGuard
SpywareBlaster

I don`t seem to get many problems, and I use all of these as no single program gives 100% protection.

You could also carry out free on line scans with these from this forum here:

Hope it helps

LB2

Have you tried switching it on........?