Questions about Mods, WINRAR, Viruses

[autumnsky38]

Hi everyone. I used to have tons of mods on my computer and afterwhile we got some kind of virus. (never did find out what it was) Anyway, hubby was sure that it must be Win Rar or my downloaded mods causing the problem, and so in the interest of marital peace, I uninstalled the Win Rar program and all of my mods. Of course the computer problem went away (sigh) which confirrmed to my husband that all of my goodies must've been at fault. Now, I'm playing Oblivion totally Vanilla and I'm bored out of my mind! HELP!

 

I would love to find a way to prove to him that neither the mods themselves nor Win Rar could be responsible for viruses (or whatever the problem was) but I don't know where to begin. I wonder if anyone out there might be able to point me in the direction of some great info that I could show him so that I can get my game on again?

 

Thank you in advance!!!!

Tracy, still bored out of her mind and really missing her Enchanted Druid Treehouse (among dozens of others!!) :)

[bben46]

Shooting is too good for people who make viruses. I think they should be turned over to a mob of their victims for justice. >:(

 

There are millions of people using mods without viruses. Here on the Nexus we have over a million registered users, and since we opened several years ago as Tesource we have had over 70 million unique visitors. And we are not the only site. Just the best. :closedeyes:

 

Of course it is possible to get a virus through a mod, but it is not likely as it would be reported quickly here - in the time I have been here I have seen only one instance, and it was taken down quickly. At the first report of a possible virus the file is blocked from being downloaded and tested by a moderator. If it passes it is put back up. If not, you will never see it again. :thumbsup:

 

 

Winrar is a commercial product - Not free but try before you buy. And if they transmit a virus it will cut into their sales. If you get it from a non approved source it could come with a virus attached. Only download from sources you trust. I use 7-zip, a completely free unzipping program that is available on Texsnexus as well as many other reputable download sites.

 

Most antivirus programs allow you to test each program you download before installing. It just adds a few extra steps to the process.

 

Without mods you might as well play on a game console. :whistling:

[Tchos]

Without knowing what symptoms you had that made you suspect a virus, I'm only offering a possibility. A while ago I suspected a virus as I was constantly running out of space on my hard drive, and it always happened when I played Oblivion, no matter how much stuff I archived and deleted to free up space. Turned out it was the fault of Fraps, which I was using for screenshots. I had the screenshot key set to "Print Screen" button, which was fine, but Fraps' default "capture video" button was the same one that Oblivion uses for "quick load", so every time I quickloaded a game I was also capturing a 30-second video file, and Fraps' compression favours quality over size, so eventually I found many gigs' worth of unwanted video files to delete.

[Vagrant0]

You can get viruses from just browsing web sites if you don't have proper protection. Using a computer without anti-virus software that has website/script blocking is just asking for trouble unless you are only visiting corporate sites (and even then it depends on the corporation). Your virus could have come from anywhere. Most of the viruses people get are not actually from downloaded content, but from opening up e-mail from others that contains scripts, flash, or popups.

 

Generally, using mods is about as safe as you can get in so long that you aren't downloading things as soon as they are released, and you have some basic security on your computer.

[colourwheel]

One of my computer caught a virus once from just opening up a website and it was clear it was a scripted web vid that automatically launches when you open the page. I ended up testing the web page on my main computer that is fully protected and another computer that has no protection. This is one reason why most web forums will not allow you to embed videos in threads unless the forum has a youtube script to embed safe videos. the only possible thing i can think that might have heppened if you think Win Rar is the problem is trojan virus. I personally use Win rar too and have never had a problem with a virus using it. if i ever suspect that something i might download might be unsafe i always scan it before extracting. Downloading a rar file will not let a virus free on your computer unless it is extracted such as trojans. most of the time trojan virus will be automatically be detected even if you are using Mcafee to protect your computer and it will be quarintined or removed. I honestly do not think Win rar or any mods off Nexus would have caused your computer to get a virus. Even if you think the virus could have gone away after you removed Win rar and all oblivion mods does not prove it was related to the program or anything you have downloaded from nexus. Honestly even with programs to protect your computer the internet will never be 100% safe to browse.

 

you have to look at it this way...

 

just because you use a a seatbelt when you drive a car does not guarantee if you get in an accident you will be unharmed. But people still drive cars knowing that so many people die a year in car accidents even with seatbelts on.

 

the only way you can be 100% sure to never catch a virus using your computer is to never use the internet. so you can actually use this in an argument with you husband accusing win rar or mods off nexus for being the cuase of the problems.

[darkjaffar]

What anti-virus software do you use? My AVG Anti-Virus will scan each file as it is downloaded. Perhaps this will convince him, as he will literally see, after a download occurs, the scan happening right there in the list of downloaded files. It won't even allow you to run or do anything with a file until the short scan is completed. At least, that's the way it behaves in Firefox (A secure web browser) using a plugin it installs to the web browser during install. AVG will even pre-check many websites to determine if they are safe or not (not sure what it does to do this though. May just check a blacklist). AVG Anti-Virus can be freely downloaded on their website.

 

That said, I am pretty certain other anti-virus software suites will have similar features so you may not need to even change yours. I'm just not familiar with them. AVG is the only one I have used that has made what it is actively doing known to me. Norton and the like, I usually just assumed they were doing their jobs. Maybe that's changed since I last used them.

[Rapeoductions]

Since i rebuild computers for a living i thought i might be able to give you some advice on how to keep you're hubby happy and be able to play you're game with safe mods. here are a few tips

1. if you want to use winrar download from http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm make sure that it is not a beta version or trail version.
   
2. If you have avg set it up so it automatically scans it after download
   
3. After you unzip it before you open any of the folders scan it again!! There are Viruses that cannot be detected in a zipped format
   
4. After a few mods make a system restore point. It is under accessories. Make sure you also delete them from time to time.
   
5. Only download from trusted sites such as some corporate sites Tesnexuse and others that you fully trust
   
6. If you really want to stay virus free the best in my professional opinion spend $70/yearly and buy bitdefender internet 2009 found at http://www.bitdefender.com/PRODUCT-2214-en...urity-2009.html
   
7. attachments off of emails always are a possible virus even if it is from someone you know
   
8. Watch what sites you get onto
   

Question How do you know that it was a virus because if you took out all you're mods and it was fixed that was not a virus that is something else a virus will affect many parts of you're computer and is not that easy to fix. If you reply back with the Signs/Symptoms i might be able to fix you're problem

[jaysus]

just deny him any love until you get your mods... :D

seriously, winrar is most likely clean as are 99.99999% of the mods here

 

to avoid viruses:

-dont start executables which you dont know (for example iscrewyourpc.exe)

-download programs only from legitimate sources or sources you trust

-avoid blinking pop ups and banners that say stuff like "free breast enlargement pills today!"

-generally avoid anything that sounds to good to be true as its most likely not true

-check your browsers cache... i assume hubby surfed some "unsafe" pages and tried to hide hit by blaming oblivion :D

 

but on how to proove it to him:

 

most simple method is to get a virus scanner (mcafee, kaspersky, norton... whatever) and check every rar file before extracting it...

nevertheless the chances for a rar file to start a virus just by extracting it are as good as non existant, you would still need to activate the files you just extracted as winrar cant do that for you, neither can it move files into folders where they could autostart

furthermore 99% of all mods are not executables but simple folders which you put into your oblivion folder and therefore cant end up in your system folders where a virus could autostart

thirdly oblivion itself is as good as unable to start scripts or programs outside of itself and thus cant activate a virus neither...

 

so basicly what im saying is that a mod is as good as impossible to start a virus... look for more reasonable origins... Occams razor tells you to choose the simpliest solution/explanation which imo would be that hubby surfed "BLINKFREEBLINKFREE" porn to say it bluntly

or even simpler and more harmonic probably: it was no virus... maybe it was just a conflict or whatever who knows... get some screenshots and we might be able to tell ya

(which obviously might be hard now that the problem is gone)

[tapakidney]

Orrrrrr, get his and hers computers! : )