I think the forums on this site are the best I have ever seen. I am amazed at all the helpful information and people. Thanks to all of you! I am clueless to all the computer techie stuff but I use the computer all the time at work and at home. I'm an advance user when it comes to using software, but thats all. I would like to know how I go about learning all this virus stuff (other stuff as well). I got information from the forum about what software to use like spybot,ad-ware, etc. Last night I downloaded a few of them and attempted to do the scans. I also read the tuturials. The problem I have was that I was afraid to do anything because I had no idea if the problem files found could be deleted or not. I wasn't sure if removing the files would cause some programs not to work any longer. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to quarantine them first and then delete them or just delete them. I am really a klutz about this! I am willing to take classes. Are there any recommendations on the path I should take to learn how to understand what it is I am looking at when I do run these virus programs? I am really a push button kind of person and really need user friendly operations! Any advice? I really need protection on my PC but I want to be able to fix things for myself when problems come up. Thanks. sunrise - a novice trying and willing to learn

Quartatining a virus basically tells the computer not to use the infected files. If your computer is happy to boot and run programs as normal then you can delete the virus from quarntine. Learndirect do courses and there is probably one which covers viruses you oculd probably get work to pay for it too.

hello read over the help files in what ever programs your useing. google on any questions that they dont answer. and checking at the makers sight useally give a link to more help forums. you might allso click on the killspyware in my sig. ••• Resistance is invigorating! •••kill spyware

G'day sunrise, With any "anti-anything" software, please make sure you update the reference files...often. AdAware Support Spybot Support can help you with specific questions about these programs. With AdAware, it is recommended that you put any items found into quarantine. If, after a week or so, your system is working ok, then you can delete the old quarantine files. They are inactive, once they go into quarantine. But, because there are a number of items that come bundled with certain other programs, removing these items renders the programs in-operative. In this case, you would restore these items from quarantine, and put them in the ignore list. Your program (Kazaa for example), will now work ok, and the 'bundled' items will be ignored by the AdAware scan. Hope this is of some help.

Thanks All! I've been reading the tuturial information trying to uderstand how spybot and adware works. I will try to go to their support sites as well. When I ran these programs a lot of stuff was detected but I didn't want to do anything with them until I knew exactly what I was supposed to be. I have this hugh fear of getting rid of something and making my PC inoperable! Right now I think my biggest problem is being able to recognize and understand what the files are. So, really when I use Adware I don't have to worry about it and I should just quarantine everything that it finds? What about Spybot? When I ran that I got over 100 red exclamation marks!!! Should I just quarantine everything it finds as well? Also spybot automatically selects files. Should I always quarantine everyting spybot selects? Some of the problems that spybot has selected cause me some concern because I read the posts that said I should get rid of some of these. For instance, GATOR, BackWeb,WildTangent were selected by spybot, but on a post I read someone stated that you didn't want to get rid of wildtangent and at least some of the backweb. Please advise. Sorry, I got a little long winded. sunrise - a novice trying and willing to learn