is it a virus?

Saft Hans

The message centre on my laptop today had 2 messages, 1 saying the firewall is turned off on both my norton antivirus and windows. The other message said my antivirus protection is turned off. However when I clicked on "turn it on" it directed me to norton but according to this nothing is turned off.

I scanned my laptop using norton and superantispyware and but detected nothing.

So, is it a virus?

Thanks for anyones help.

drunkmonkey

Norton is like a virus, I really think it's over kill, see can you remove it through control panel, if you can't download http://www.appremover.com/ app remover and rip it off.
Restart the computer when it's gone and download and run http://www.malwarebytes.org/ , This will catch most malware if there's any there.
When you've any malware removed you still need some anti virus, Microsoft have a pretty good one for fully free, no charge, nada, you can get it here http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

Your computer will thank you and you'll have no more annoying pop ups.

Saft Hans

thanks for that

I dont know much about laptops though so these may be stupid questions but how do i remove it using the control panel? and will any of my documents/photos/songs be removed using them applications and downloads u recommended?

drunkmonkey

Saft Hans wrote: »

thanks for that

I dont know much about laptops though so these may be stupid questions but how do i remove it using the control panel? and will any of my documents/photos/songs be removed using them applications and downloads u recommended?

Ohh lord you really don't have a clue what's in front of you:)

Go to Start, Then Control Panel (this is where you control your computer, add networks, set up users, etc)

When in control panel look for programs & features or add remove programs. Then go into norton or any other anti virus you have and highlight it then hit remove. Here's it's quickly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt5VQ0WZXUU

If you can't do that just use app remover and take off any anti virus that might be there.

Your pictures music or any documents won't be touched, don't worry.

drunkmonkey

You'll be up till 1 doing it all if you start now, might not even take as long, you can still surf the net once you've restarted after removing any norton or older anti virus, app remover might be best to take it all off... You can be running malware bytes while downloading security essentials..

Saft Hans

so is it definitely a virus then?

bhickey

Saft Hans wrote: »

So, is it a virus?

I doubt that it's virus-related. It sounds like your Norton AV trial/license has run out.

As suggested, remove Norton and install a proper antivirus program (I'd also recommend MSE from Microsoft but there are several good free ones out there). Between scanning with Malwarebytes and running MSE you should be okay.

Ironbar

Would stay away from NAV anyway. Too easy for malware to get around it and it makes the system slow. Instead use different programs for AV and spyware. There is free ones around.

I can recommend Avira Free Antivirus, Spybot S&D and MBAM (Malwarebytes Antimalware). They are absolutely free and work.

lazlo

dump you AV programs, they are a pain in the hole. Use freeware removal apps to scan your system regularly. AV is intrusive and it slows your system down. I rarely get any malware without active protection. Whenever I had active clients like Norton, Avast and AVG I actually found that I got more viruses. :eek: