virus/spyware scanners etc..

Last night my computer was infected with a virus through a codec I downloaded. This trojan/virus/whole bunch of shit was masked as a codec I needed to update for Windows Media Player. When I installed it, I was greeded with a nice critical system alert message -.-.

This is the first time I've had to deal with this and the effects from the virus files are quite obvious. I'm on 47% system resources. And internet detection was removed atleast once. Also 2 programs were installed on my computer that prompts other virus scanners to be "recommended". I cannot delete these as a window pops up saying "someone else is using them". I feel these are just other sites that contain more trojans, cause when I go to them, most of the letters are in kanji.

My system has detected 1 trojan on it's own(Win32.MT.R.s) Today I bought Norton(-.-) and as I suspected it hasn't found anything that is comprimizing my system(goodbye 69$. . ..) Even through Symantec online scan, it found nothing.

I guess I'm asking a point in the right direction. Like if anyone knows a legitmate program that works.

I'm faced with 2 things:

Full reformat/lose everything on my C drive.
Buy another computer.

Really stupid that was. That's the ast time I will be downloading anything for applications that I hardly use.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Winter Storm

I guess I'm asking a point in the right direction. Like if anyone knows a legitmate program that works.

Well I use Avast! Antivirus (Along with ZoneAlarm, and Firefox) and I've not had problems with it. It's free as well.

You might want to give AVG a try. It is also free.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Online scanning can be done through housecall.trendmicro.com
free

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Avasti found and removed alot of trojans. However some files could not be removed which is causing them to come back. What I'm going to do tommorow. . . no idea.

Either way, I can't be online with this computer.

Thanks for all your help.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

or another possiblity if you know how and have access to another computer, put your infected hard drive in it and scan/clean it as a secondary hard drive.

I was speaking idiomatically.