Don’t worry. All these warnings and alerts are absolutely fake and their one goal is to scare you into whipping out your credit card, and buying up the “paid” version of the software to remove them. Fortunately, there are plenty of knowledgeable people on the web fighting back and providing solutions to get rid of these issues safely and effectively. Here are the steps you must to take to get rid of personal antivirus:

Use MalwareBytes Software for Removal

This is the first and most important step in the removal process. You need to purchase a piece of software called MalwareBytes. Last time I checked, it’s around $25. It’s a great piece of software for getting rid of all sorts of malware and spyware programs and I’ve personally used it more than once to fix my own computers. Here’s a link to their official site: MalwareBytes.org

Once you’ve installed MalwareBytes (MB), make sure you follow the on-screen instructions to get the latest updates. Without them, the removal of Personal Antivirus may be ineffective.

Next Steps to Get Rid of Personal Antivirus

1. When in the MB program, hover over to the “Scanner” tab all the way to the left and select the option “Perform full scan”.

2. Be patient and let the scan happen. It will give you updates on how many files have been scanned and how many are infected. Watch and wait.

3. After the scan is completed, you’ll be prompted asking whether you want to show the results of the scan. Click “ok” and you’ll be able to view all the infected files.

4. The infected file names differ from case to case, but you’ll likely see the name “Personal Antivirus” in the infected files somewhere. Check all the boxes next to the infected files that were found.

5. Click “Remove Selected” for MB to remove the infected files that it found.

6. After removing the infected files, MalwareBytes will give you a log of what it completed.

At this point, you can exit the program and resume normal computer activity. Your computer should be free of the annoying “Personal Antivirus” spyware program.

Source: How to Remove Personal Antivirus (removal guide)

Give Your Computers Away

There are plenty of local people who may actually be interested in old computers and hardware. You would be surprised how many people out their still use the machines and are constantly looking for new functional parts to replace broken ones which cannot be purchased anymore.
[sniplet AdSense Skyscraper]
Some ways in which you can get someone to pickup your “junk” is to attract attention to it. For example on a dry sunny day if you live on private property you can simply set your old computer supplies out front of your home with a sign in front saying free. This way the next interested person who passes your home may simply pick it up and continue on their way saving you from having to spend money on gas to deliver the supplies to someone else.

Sell The Supplies On Ebay Or Craigslist

Ebay and Craigslist are two of the most popular websites for buying and selling second hand goods. Some people see old computer supplies as “vintage” and find significant value in its current existence whether it is working or not. As we stated before many people out their may need your old supplies to make their old supplies work more efficiently since most old computer parts can no longer be purchased new.

Schools And Colleges

The last option you could do is if the supplies are still functional you could attempt to donate them to a school, college, or student in need. Many schools out their do not have the funds to support buying mass mounts of computer supplies and some even require the students to provide for themselves. Donating is a good way to make a small difference in a child or teens future education.

A final and important note, before ever selling or giving away any kind of computer supplies be sure to wipe all data from the actual computer. Acts such as totally stripping and reformatting a hard drive can remove existing data from a computer. Or to be on the safe side you can simply physically destroy the hard drive to fully eliminate the chances of anyone finding a way of bringing back your personal information, leading to you falling victim to identity theft.

Recently, Google came up with a new feature for its website, it is actually away to give you a personalized web page, it is called iGoogle. Within iGoogle, you can actually have a few things showing on your personal web page, for example, gmail (e-mail), weather, quotes, flowers of the day and many other features, it is almost endless at the number of things that can be placed on the iGoogle page.

Mind you iGoogle can slow down your internet browser as it is uploading all of the latest information depending on what you have on your iGoogle home page. If you like some of the features you may want to think about deleting some to help your browser work more efficiently.

If you are still wondering “How to get rid of iGoogle?” Well in some aspects you can, there are many people that simply aren’t happy with this latest Google feature. So here are a few things you can do to in a sense get rid of iGoogle.

1) On your browser go to tools, select options and change your home page. This will tell your computer that you don’t want to use that particular site anymore as your home page.

2) Like some of the information or features, consider deleting some of the widgets you have. By doing so, this tells your computer to no longer search for the information, freeing up “virtual memory” for your computer.

If this does not solve the issues you are having and you still believe that the problems are iGoogle, there is one last thing you can do. However, there is really no way to get rid of iGoogle, it is simply a browser page.

1) Open your browser.
2) Sign in to iGoogle.
3) Remove gadgets.
a) Click on the drop down arrow on the gadget you wish to remove.
b) Click on delete gadget.
c) You will be asked if you wish to remove the gadget.
d) Confirm the removal of the gadget.
4) After you removed the gadgets. It is time to make one final change. Going back to the classic look of your Google page.

a) In the upper right hand corner of the iGoogle screen you will see a series of underlined words. some of the words are actually “Classic Google”
b) Click on Classic Google.
c) You will be prompted to make the change to Classic Google.

Unfortunately, I must say there is no real way of talking to an actual person via e-mail at the Google company. After many long hours of research. There is only the above solutions available at this time. Unless, you have an account with google to use other applications, they do allow you to delete your entire account if you choose to. This will get rid of all applications that google does offer to its clients. So if you ask “How to Get Rid of iGoogle?” There is only one actual solution, you must delete your google account. To do so, simply follow the steps below.

1) Sign in on the Google accounts home page.
2) Click the “edit” link next to products.
3) Simply go to delete account.
4) You will be asked to confirm the deletion of your account.

This is the only way to completely get rid of iGoogle. You can always create a new account, however, you will need to set it up with a different e-mail if you have one available.

The zinger here is that even though you may clear your temporary internet files, there is something that cannot be erased and this is known as your index file. This though is ok as it is harder for someone to access it and it will do for now to erase your temporary internet files. How to do this and where your files are stored vary from what type of operating system you are using and what internet browser your are using.

If you are still using Internet Explorer, it is a fairly simple procedure. You can open a web page and on the upper left hand corner on the menu bar you will see a tab called ‘Tools’. Click on this tab and a drop down list of options appear. You will have to select the ‘Internet Options’ and after you have done this, a small dialog box comes up that has a multitude of options. Under the ‘general’ tab you will see an option for internet options.

A tab called ‘Delete’ files is visible, click on it and another dialog box will open up. After reading the instructions check the box which says ‘delete all offline content’ as well. If you have never actually cleared your temporary files for months or years together this may take a long while, be prepared to occupy yourself. After this is done, you will notice that there are other options that include: delete cookies, clear history and others. Click on all of these and delete them one by one. All your tracks have now been deleted.

The above instructions are for internet explorer browser, if you are using Firefox browser, open up a page and from the menu bar on the upper left hand side, select tools, from the drop down list box select options, and then click the privacy tab. From the dialog box displayed there are a number of options, the main difference here though is that the ‘temporary internet files’ is replaced by the word ‘cache’ which is typically the same process, delete the files and wait.

If you are using Netscape browser, after opening up a page, from the menu bar on the upper left hand corner select a tab called ‘edit’ from the drop down list box and select ‘preferences’ as a new dialog box will appear. There will be a clear disk option on the right hand side, select that to clear your temporary internet files from that. After this has been done, a confirmation message will appear in the form of a pop up. To finish, simply click on ‘ok’. There are of course the added options of clearing the history as well, to do a thorough job of cleaning it is advisable to clear it.

For the permanent index files though, if you are really keen on getting rid of them, there are software available that do this for you. You can search online for an appropriate software or check with a computer dealer in your area who will provide you with suitable privacy software.

Once this happens, anyone can gain access to your credit card information or it is possible to gain access to all your documents and files. Thus there is a threat to your computer’s safety. There are different types of this virus. Whatever type they belong to, they are sure to wreak havoc to your system. Here we see the basic difference between a normal virus and a Trojan virus. A normal virus tries to infect the various parts of your system whereas the Trojan virus opens the doors to digital nastiness. However, it is possible to get rid of this Trojan virus. Here is how it can be achieved:

1. Your anti-virus should be up-to-date
2. Run a scan
3. If you know the name of the file, delete it
4. Check for it manually
5. Be careful when you download
6. Reinstall your system

Your anti-virus should be up-to-date: This is very important. Your anti-virus software should be ready to fight the virus. It should include all the latest virus and spy ware definitions. Norton, AVG, Avast and Kaspersky are good anti-virus software. Once you identify the virus, delete it immediately.

Run a scan: Run a system scan and a registry scan. If you come across the Trojan virus, simply delete it. This is easy as the Trojan virus usually resides within an unimportant file. It could be an mp3 or a free game or even a jpeg image. So you can delete it without thinking twice. However this is not the case with normal viruses as they usually attack important files. So you should be careful when you try to get rid of the normal ones.

If you know the name of the file, delete it: Sometimes, it so happens that you might know the name of the file which contains the Trojan virus. If this is the case, all you need to do is look up online and see how you can get rid of the file. Once you know what to do, get rid of it immediately.

Check for it manually: This is another way to get rid of the Trojan virus. It could be time consuming though. While you are working on your system, check your task manager to see if there is any other program running (a program you did not start). If you find anything, running in the background without your knowledge, use the ‘add or remove software’ option from the control panel to remove it. However you should be careful not to remove something that is needed. Or you’re going to regret the whole thing in the first place!

Be careful when you download: When you go online, make sure you are extra careful about what you download. Your computer’s security is very important. Never compromise on that. Make sure you download from reliable sources and be very careful using torrents and Lime wire!

Reinstall your system: If none of the above mentioned methods work, you have no other option but to reinstall your system. Make sure you have the back up for all your files and reinstall your operating system. It might take a couple of hours, but at the end of it you can be sure that the Trojan virus is no longer a threat to your computer.

Cookies have a lot of advantages as well. They track your sessions, as you browse through websites that require log-in data, authenticates sessions and maintains personal preferences like page layout, text size and various other web page features. However, the primary purpose of cookies still remains intact. The purpose is to differentiate users and to remember them. The cookie aptly differentiates users with the log-in details such as the username and password and then uses these facts to remember the user when he visits the next time. They are not any random executable codes, but just simple text files. Cookies can be stored or deleted as the user wishes to. Getting rid of cookies is a very simple procedure that any user can follow and demonstrate.

Cookies are not aliens. They are not viruses or spyware, nor do they cause spam or pop-ups. So getting rid of them can be unnecessary sometimes. Cookies are shuttled back and forth from the computer to the web server when you surf through web pages that use cookies. The privacy and security aspect of cookies arise because of the vital information it carries for every user. The username and passwords of anyone can be fraudulently intercepted and easily used. Cookies also contain the list of websites that the user has surfed over a period of time. So the privacy concern is always there with cookies. In most of today’s browsers, cookies can be easily treated at will. Be it using them efficiently or deleting them discreetly, it can be done via easy methods. If the privacy and security of the listed websites really matter to you, you can set the browser to reject cookies by default. The only drawback in such cases is that the websites that need cookies cannot be rendered by your computer. Services like email, social networking web pages and online banking will not be possible. Since this is not viable and practical, it is advised that users delete the cookies once they are done surfing for the day. Getting rid of cookies is no big deal and also causes no harm to your system.

The Internet Explorer requires this treatment to get rid of cookies-
Go to the Tools menu of the Internet Explorer while making sure only one browser is opened at a time.
Select “Internet Options” from the menu.
Click on “Delete Cookies” and then confirm by clicking on “Ok”.

Also, you can delete cookies from your explorer by right-clicking the icon on your desktop and choosing “Properties”. Then follow steps two and three.

Deleting cookies in Firefox can be done by the following method-
Click on the “Tools” menu on the Firefox browser
Choose “Options”.
Click on “Privacy Tab” and choose the button that says “Clear Private Data”.
Check the box that says cookies and click “Ok” to confirm your decision.

CTRL+SHIFT+DEL can also delete cookies in Firefox. The following way can also be adopted-
Click on Options from Tools
Click the box “Always clear my private data when I close Firefox” which is available in the Privacy Tab.
Click on Settings and Check the box that says “Cookies”.

Removing unwanted toolbars is a very good practice, because adware toolbars are not only known to monitor your search queries, but also check your browsing habits. You wouldn’t want anyone doing that, would you? All this private information of yourself is then stealthily sent to the toolbar’s host site and this information is used to send you targeted ads, and in some very extreme cases, if the information retrieved is very personal, like credit card numbers etc, it can be used without your permission to steal your identity.

More often than not, removing a toolbar can be very difficult. They get be downloaded secretly and are installed on your hard drive without your consent. Moreover, some tricky and smart ones develop ways to try and block their un-installation process. Some very bad ones even have hidden re-installers that install the same toolbar back, immediately after you have removed them. One disheartening thing is that removing toolbars manually is virtually impossible. What makes it worse is that these devious toolbars sometimes cannot be found out by antivirus software or cannot be stopped from performing its functions by firewalls, because they somehow integrate their conniving selves to the main part of your browser. Don’t worry though, because most of them are not so advanced.

Instructions to remove desktop toolbars

Like I said, most of them are not so technologically advanced, therefore the one thing you can do is to remove them manually. Follow these simple steps to do so!

Using your browser:

1. Click on the “View” menu dropdown of the browser that you use.
2. Select “Toolbars”,
3. You should see a list of toolbars you have. Uncheck the toolbars you do not want.

Using your Control Panel

1. Proceed by clicking ‘Start’, go to ‘Control Panel’ and double click on the ‘Add and Remove Program’ utility (Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs).

2. Once you are there, you should see a list of various programs you have installed on your computer. Look for some toolbar programs, find the name of the toolbar and then click the “Remove” button. The succeeding instructions should be very easy to follow.

Steps to take if a toolbar reappears

Like mentioned previously, the major problem with some of the spyware and adware toolbars is that they can protect themselves from the usual ‘Add or Remove programs’ uninstall tasks. They reappear on the browser that you use the next time you log on to internet and start it. Therefore the only remaining solution I can think of is to use an anti-spyware or adware programs. These very effective programs should be able to identify and properly remove spyware and adware toolbars and also any other adware/spyware files that are present in your computer. Most of the time, these malicious toolbars are only the tip of the iceberg. You may not be aware of the many other spyware/ adware/ malware threats hiding behind them that are undetected and even more damaging.

Changing browsers

Some people change the browser they currently use and use another browser to counteract this toolbar menace taking advantage of the fact that most adware toolbars are made with Internet Explorer in mind, but this idea is not very effective. Irrespective of what browser you use, if you do not have a proper and working anti-spyware program, your system will definitely be an adware and other kinds of infections magnet.

Software Method

1) Check on the Internet for pixel fixing software. There are many sites that offer specific pixel repairing software for different monitor configurations. Rapidly turning the monitor on and off can also do the trick sometimes by revitalizing the dead pixels. However, if that does not work, follow the steps below.

Pressure Method

1) Turn off the monitor of the computer.

2) Get a damp, but not wet, piece of cloth, so that the screen does not get scratched

3) Get yourself a pen, pencil, screwdriver, or any apparatus that has a converging, but relatively blunt point. The perfect instrument would be the stylus of a PDA.

4) Make sure you fold the piece of cloth to ensure the instrument you are using does not puncture the cloth and scratch the screen.

5) Take the instrument and apply pressure on the screen where the dead pixel is through the piece of folded cloth. Make sure you do not put pressure anywhere else on the monitor, as this can create more dead pixels.

6) Continue applying pressure while turning on your computer and monitor.

7) Gently let go of the pressure and the dead pixel will not be there. This technique will work as the liquid has not spread into each little pixel.

Tapping Method

1) Turn on the LCD monitor and computer.

2) On your monitor, double click on an entirely black image as this can show the dead pixels very noticeably against the backdrop. (IMPORTANT* – Make sure you show only a black image and not a blank signal as you need to use the backlight of the LCD in this process for illuminating the back of the panel.)

3) Get yourself a pen with a round end. A marker with the cap on will also be perfect for this.

4) Use the pen’s rounded end and very gently tap on the area where the dead pixel is. Make sure you do not tap too hard. Do it just enough to notice a white glow just under the point where the pen meets the monitor. If you do not see a white glow, then you have not tapped hard enough, so slightly increase the pressure of your taps till you see the white glow.

5) Continue tapping gently. Keep increasing the pressure on the taps steadily until the dead pixel is no longer visible.

6) Now, double click on an entirely white image like an empty Word document to make sure that you did not inadvertently create more harm than good. Your job is done!

More Tips to Get Rid of Dead Pixels

1) If this tapping and pressure technique does not work, take your instrument and start to move outward around the dead pixel. If you notice the pixel shimmer while doing this then you can easily find out where you can focus the pressure and tapping techniques.

2) More often than not, many people are happy with this technique but they may not work in every case. Don’t be disheartened if it is still not fixed initially. It may take more than one attempt to ensure you are pressing directly on the dead pixel.

Deleting the files that make up the program does not get rid of them, as the registry values remain unchanged thereby resulting in errors and sometimes even causing the system to crash.

Follow the steps given below and you should be rid of unwanted computer programs in a jiffy.

Windows has a list of all installed programs on it. This list can be found at:
Start -> Settings -> Control Panel

In the Control Panel, select Add or Remove Programs. If you open this, it displays the list of all the programs that have been installed on your computer. Select the program that you want to remove and click Uninstall. This opens the “Confirm Uninstall” dialog box. If you accept to removing the program again then it is uninstalled. Windows removes all the files associated with the program and removes all the changes the installation had made to the registry during installation.

Most programs usually include an uninstaller. If you know the location where a particular program has been installed then you can directly remove the program from that location. Use Windows Explorer and go to the folder where the program has been installed. In that folder search for the “Uninstall” file. Double clicking on it opens the uninstaller for that program. Again, the program asks for confirmation before removing the program from the computer and undoing all registry changes.

Now if you have already deleted the files associated with the program instead of uninstalling it, then the registry needs to be updated correspondingly. Here is what you do for that. These steps may damage your computer and cause it to crash if done incorrectly.

Click Start -> Run.
Type “regedit” in the textbox and click OK.
Move to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE” in the opened window and locate the key for the program you want to remove. Delete the corresponding folder.
Move to “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE” next and locate the key for the unwanted program. Delete the corresponding folder here again.
Next move to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\- CurrentVersion\Uninstall” and locate the key for the program. Delete the program’s folder.
Move to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services”, find and delete the program’s key.
Move to “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows” and delete the program’s key.

Any of the above entries may not exist in the registry depending on what was deleted in the beginning. So just skip those steps when you cannot find the corresponding entries.

Alternately there are a variety of software available online, both free and paid that can do the job of cleaning up your registry when they are run by checking the registry and the corresponding location to find if the program exists.

Some of these software also check if a certain program you are about to install is a Trojan, a virus or a worm and inform you beforehand before you install such programs.

Though all these options are available, it is always wiser to determine if you need a certain program before you set out to install it. These programs take up space on your computer and also slow it down. Therefore, exercise caution and care before you install any program on you computer.

The first question that arises in mind before understanding more about viruses is who writes these viruses. There are individuals from so many different backgrounds involved in writing such malicious program. It has been really difficult to determine the thought behind writing such a monster that can cause damage at such a massive scale. But the most common reason is to test skills by writing such programs, mostly experimentation. There are others who just want to sabotage and make gains out of all this.

Different Types of Computer Viruses

We will now revert back to learn more about the three categories of viruses; Trojans, Worms and Email viruses. The Trojan virus enters your computer when you allow it to enter. Now the question is why you would allow a virus to enter your system. For example, you downloaded a file such as genius.jpg because you like to collect images and that image has a Trojan virus in it. Now once you open the image, the virus will automatically make its way into your computer. Trojan does not replicate but makes an environment to allow other viruses to infect the computer.

Worm is a more dangerous kind than Trojan. This virus has the capacity to replicate and spread to various files and if the computer is on the network, then the worm can spread from one computer to another and so on. It would not be wrong to say that worm is an intelligent virus because it analyzes the loop holes and creates serious security threats that just keep on crashing computer after computer. It also has the capability of spreading on the network through emails.

Let me quote here about a worm called ILoveYou. This virus was reported on May 4, 2000 and it caused a total shutdown of companies, government institutions, personal users, as they had to shut down their mail servers, complete banking systems, etc. It was nothing less than a nightmare. This worm was reported to be made by a Philippines couple who were ultimately caught on May 8, 2000. Through this example, we can clearly understand the damage that this virus (worm) can bring.

The third category that I am going to list here is the Email virus. This virus is embedded in email attachments and when you open an attachment that you receive from an unknown source, it is highly likely that you are opening up an email virus. This virus has the capability to send mails to all your contacts, including your family, business contacts, etc. This can be a total disaster and a total burn down of your business credibility once your client knows that you are working in an unsecured environment.

The viruses can spread very quickly from one program file to another and make changes in the program files that will render the program inoperable. The computer can be infected by a boot sector virus if you are using a floppy infected with that virus. The virus can break the backbone of your computer, Windows Registry. The question arises here as to how we can get rid of computer viruses. But let us first look at the different signs and symptoms of a computer infected with a virus, then we will move on to how we can prevent and get rid of computer viruses.

The computer infected with a virus runs too slow and often ends up with a frozen computer. It will crash and restart and then crash to restart again. The programs don’t run as they were before. You are unable to give a print command. The antivirus program is disabled and gets disabled every time you enable it. You might hear different sounds or music from your computer at times when you are not listening to any song or opening up any programs.

The worms on the other hand just replicate so many times that in the end you are out of disk space. It will spread out with an infected file by sending emails to all your contacts from the address book. It can start deleting files and programs from your computer that you installed before. It will install hidden programs into the computer that will do stealth monitoring of your computer.

How You Can Prevent Computer Viruses

First of all, turn on your firewall. Keep your operating system up to date with the latest operating system files. Do not open any email attachments that are not from the trusted sources. Do not install software, especially free ones from websites you don’t know about. Do not hook your computer on a network that you know is infected. Do not keep an outdated antivirus software because it will not give you the protection you need.

All these preventions are the remedies and solutions to your problem. Get a good antivirus software that provides you with constant updates and that also has a built-in anti-spyware, anti-malware, and anti-adware. I believe learning the above information through this article will enable you to take better care of your computer from now on. Have fun! Best of Luck!