Scams

[kvnchrist]

I had subscribed to a premium verstion of an anti-virus softwear and had come accross instances where I needed to reinstall my operating system and them reinstalling the anti-virus softwear. I guess I did it more often that the owners liked and the last time I tried to reinstall it, I got a pop-up that said it had been installed too many times and told me to call their support line. I did an theb guy wanted me to download and install an exe file that would allow him to get inside my computer. He said he needed to see what was stopping the install and at first I refused. My daughter said it was sop for these people, so I took her advice and installed it.

 

The next few minutes was taken up by him taking me through a tour of my installs and my temp files telling me that my computer was full of stuff that had been on there before, but he insisted was stopping me from installing their product and for $175.00 he would rid my computer of all this stuff, I could have deleted for free. I ended up turning off my computer and trying to restore point before I stupidly let him take over the computer but I couldn't find any that I could use.

 

Well after that all my games including Skyrim began to load slower and slower until I thought I was back to dial-up. I ended up scrubbing the hard drive and reinstalling the OS and then my games. I hate these underhanded anal cavities who think everybody out here is stupid. I don't know if anything he did made my computer load games slowly, but I'm never going to go through that again. Downloading Skyrim from Steam is 11.1 Gb and that's a lot when you're teathering it through a smart phone.

[HeyYou]

Ouch. Do you have a data cap on your phone plan?? Overages get expensive in a quick hurry.

[kvnchrist]

Ouch. Do you have a data cap on your phone plan?? Overages get expensive in a quick hurry.

I'm already over that. I'm paying for 60gb and that passed half way through reinstalling Skyrim. I'll be shoving out around $350-$400 tnext month of my phone, but the cycle ends there. Christmas is comming up and I've set on doing prepaid credit cards for my 3 grandchild and my one great grand child. The grand kids are from 13 to 4 and thr ggk is still in diapers. They'll each get $50.00 put on the cards and they'll be placed in the hands of their parents to oversee what they buy with them.

[Aurielius]

I smell...Kapersky.

[kvnchrist]

I smell...Kapersky.

Avast Though I will stay away from Kapershy. I am thinking about going back to Norton, but I've always herd their softwear takes over sytems and I really don't want something slowing down my laptop.

[Aurielius]

 

I smell...Kapersky.

Avast Though I will stay away from Kapershy. I am thinking about going back to Norton, but I've always herd their softwear takes over sytems and I really don't want something slowing down my laptop.

 

No.... Kapersky is a very good anti virus, we use it for both business and personal. it's just that I also experienced that issue with one of my wife's pc's. As far a being satisfied with it's performance, I am.

[Vagrant0]

Kaspersky is one of the few "premium" softwares I would actually recommend, even if it is bloatware to a point. AVG would be the other one. Avast isn't bad, but it isn't one that I would recommend as a "premium" software. Avast has more use just as an on-demand scanner when you have downloaded something suspicious that your browser and passive defense does not see any problem.

 

I've found that unless you are technically inept to the point where you don't know how to install security addons to Chrome or Firefox, or are using IE/Outlook/facebook regularly, you're usually best off with a freeware antivirus like Microsoft Security Essentials, or Comodo Internet Security.

 

Normally I would caution against any security programs that allow some Tech to access your computer, but unfortunately we live in a world where you have people with no computer literacy using computers. Even Windows has one of these backdoors built in. Instead, you should really just thoroughly research what programs you are installing and be very aware of who you're paying when you go for a "premium" license. Just like any other scam, most of these depend on people not taking the time to do the research before jumping in.

 

 

On a side note, If you're under a tight data plan, you should really consider buying an external hard-drive to backup data to keep things like installation and setup files, as well as portions of your Steam library backed up. A 2-3tb drive will only cost you about $150, but again requires someone knowing how to set it up and someone who remember to backup data regularly.