Saturday, April 16, 2011

Friends 'n Freebies

A friend frantically called me this a.m. needin' my assistance with both her son's & her daughter's computers. She had mentioned to me earlier in the week that they've been havin' some pretty darn serious virus/spyware/etc. problems and neither system is now workin' correctly or up to par. She mentioned how they currently have Norton installed on their system but that their year is almost up and they really can't afford to purchase another year's worth of protection. I briefly gave her a rundown of all the FREE software that I myself have installed on my system and told her that I have had absolutely NO problems with either mine or my kid's laptop (since I gave him the exact same rundown with instructions to install all on the very day we got the darn thing) while she quickly searched in her bag for a piece of paper 'n pen. Even tho she's never even BEEN on a damn computer herself and therefore didn't have a clue as to what I was tellin 'her, she began jottin' down everything I was sayin'. In the midst of our conversation I happened to glance to one side and noticed one other lady who was in earshot of our conversation quickly doin' the very same thing...writin' down the name of the software and their accompanyin' URL's that I was blurtin' out. I told my friend to just gimme a call if she needed my help, and that's exactly what she did this mornin'.

She put her son on the phone with me but since his system is currently ridden with all kindsa yucky gunk and is all screwy and freezin' up, we couldn't get very far telephone-wise cuz I just didn't have the time nor the patience to wait for him to load each website 'n walk him thru each install/download step by step. I asked him to send me his email address so I could send him a list of what he outta do to get his system back to normal. I told him thatta short time ago I putta post on a message board that I frequent in response to someone else's plea for help with HER kid's computer and that I would send him the entire post, links included, so that he could go directly to each website and download the software that I recommended. I gave him a few other pointers before hangin' up and told him to call me if he had any problems then I sent him on his merry lil' way with a handful of computer chores to do. I ain't heard a word from him since then so I'm assumin' he did everything as I instructed 'n by now his system is in decent workin' order again.

It was some time afterwards, somewhere in between my takin' down/foldin'/puttin' away the dry clothes that I had washed on Thursday, washin'/hangin' up to dry two more loads of clothes, brownin' a big pan of meatloaf mix that went into a huge crockpot along with some other spicy chili fixin's for tonite's dinner, vacuumin' the entire house, cleanin' the bathroom and washin' the breakfast dishes that this very thought hit me:

I wonder if anybody else out there is in need of this same information and if so, what would be the best way to get it to 'em? (besides my original message board post, that is) and that's when I decided to come HERE and copy/paste my exact post.

So, just in case ya happen to be in dire need of some good ol' fashioned FREEBIE computer software that does exactly what its supposed to do, here ya go:

Post by MeanDonnaJean » April 6th, 2011, 5:47 pm

Excuse me while I elbow my way thru here 'n just bust rite into this conversation :-)

I've used AVG Free for many years now, have recommended it to countless family 'n friends, and have had NO problems with it at all. It's reliable 'n it does what its supposed to do, period.

However, I've gotta admit that I'm sorta OCD'ish when it comes to my computer's security/protection so I also have installed, regularly use, update approximately 2x weekly, 'n highly recommend ALL of the followin' FREE software:

Javacool's SpywareBlaster

Spybot Search & Destroy
CCleaner
Lavasoft's Ad-Aware

Some may think its a bit o' overkill, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. And since all of the above are FREE to install and use (and that's the BEST part in MY book cuz I'm about as cheap as they come) and they all WORK, I just can't say enuff good stuff about 'em. As a matter of fact, I can't even remember the last time my computer hadda virus...or spyware, or adware, or anything malicious/harmful. It's been THAT long ago.

So go on, why not give 'em a try? I mean, what's the worse that can happen? If for some strange reason ya just don't like 'em or ya feel like they ain't doin' ya any good, most of 'em come with uninstallers so you can just get rid of 'em......but I kinda doubt that ya WILL.

And just in case yer wonderin'.........NO, I am NOT gettin' paid for this ;-)

"The same people you abuse on your way up
you might meet up on your way down"
~Little Feat~

"Never compromise yourself.....it's all you've got"
~janis joplin~

2 comments:

biker baby said...

When I changed from Norton I started having conflicts. Turns out that Norton is like a virus in it's self if you don't get it completely uninstalled. After uninstalling it...after it was supposedly uninstalled I went to...search...typed in run...then typed in regedit...then clicked on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE...then clicked SOFTWARE...then looked for anything that said Symantec or Norton then rt clicked and deleted. Damn thing runs great now. It turned out that Norton and a few other virus protections leave little things even after an uninstall that fights with your new virus protection and creates a bad moral in your system. Thing is...DO NOT DELETED ANYTHING ELSE OR YOUR COMPUTER COULD BE LOST FOREVER...FOREVER!!!!!!

Twitch said...

Have you tried Malwarebytes? I'm currently using it with avg, ad-aware and ccleaner on several computers and never had any problems since I've installed them.

On another note, maybe you can give more info about ccleaner since a lot of people don't seem to know how to use it properly and end up with unintended consequences.