malware Archives - Page 3 of 27

How to ask for a second opinion after a clean virus scan (and why you should)

Posted on July 16, 2025

Want to get my easy to follow Tech Tips in your email?

Over the years I’ve worked on lots of computers that exhibited all the classic signs of a malware infection.

And as you might expect, many of the owners of those machines insisted that the problem couldn’t possibly be malware because they regularly scan their systems with antivirus programs.

But when I ran my own scans on those systems, I often discovered that they were indeed infected, some of them with dozens of viruses, spyware objects, malicious toolbars and other digital nasties.

How could that be? [Read more…]

Q&A: Why can’t I remove the Antivirus app from my computer?

Posted on July 15, 2025

Want to get my easy to follow Tech Tips in your email?

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

Question from Dale: Hi, Rick. I have a problem that I hope you can help me with.

Following your recommendation, I recently bought the Premium version of Malwarebytes for our computers. I read your post about only running one antivirus app at a time and I’m trying to uninstall AVG Antivirus before installing Malwarebytes.

I was able to remove AVG from my wife’s computer with no problems at all, but when I try to uninstall it from my laptop it gives me an error and the uninstall fails.

Can you tell me what I need to do to remove AVG from my computer? [Read more…]

Scam alert: Why you should cancel all of your unused email accounts

Posted on July 14, 2025

Want to get my easy to follow Tech Tips in your email?

Email is a wonderful tool that allows us to correspond with family members, friends and associates all around the world in just a matter of moments.

Gone are the days of having to write a letter, address an envelope, buy a stamp and send it on its merry way through the postal system with no guarantee that the recipient will receive it in a timely fashion, if at all.

But as the massive Yahoo hack reminded us, all is not perfect in the world of email. [Read more…]

Q&A: Does Malwarebytes still offer a free version?

Posted on June 2, 2025

Want to get my easy to follow Tech Tips in your email?

Question from Martha: Hi, Rick. I need your help with the Malwarebytes download.

I tried downloading ‘Malwarebytes Free’ by clicking the Free Antivirus Download button on this page but it installs a 14 day trial version instead.

Am I clicking the wrong thing to download the free Malwarebytes? Or maybe I’m doing something wrong?

[Read more…]

Is your PC is acting weird? It’s probably malware.

Posted on May 28, 2025

Want to get my easy to follow Tech Tips in your email?

Has your computer started acting weird all of a sudden? For example…

Do web pages take forever to load?

Are you getting irritating pop-ups on a regular basis?

Does your browser load strange pages that you didn’t intentionally visit?

Has your home page or default search engine been mysteriously changed without your permission?

If you answered yes to one or more of the above questions, your PC is probably infected with malware. [Read more…]