PC Repair

Do I Need Antivirus Software?

I'm often asked by PC users, "Do I really need to keep up my antivirus subscription?" In a word, "YES". Not just "yes", but "HELL YES." I've used Norton (Symantec) and McAfee. Kaspersky is also highly-regarded. All charge a nominal subscription fee for virus definition updates. Why is this important? New viruses are being introduced nearly every day. Virus definitions enable your antivirus software to recognize the latest viruses to provide you with the maximum protection. Virus removal, should your computer become "infected", is tedious, time-consuming, and expensive. So when you look at the cost of an annual subscription (roughly $30 or so) vs. potentially hundreds of dollars for virus removal and the risk of losing your important documents and photos it looks like a bargain.

Update your antivirus software TODAY. Keep your subscription current.

Gone Phishing

As a long-time internet user (since 1996) I've watched the internet, particularly the World-Wide Web and email, grow and change over 12 years. Email has gone from a cool new toy that hardly anyone uses to a critical part of our daily lives. Along with that came the spammers, hackers, and phishers.

What is Phishing? Phishing is the practice of creating replica web sites and sending emails pretending to be legitimate communications from businesses directing the recipient to the fake site to fool them into providing personal information, such as account numbers, user ids, or passwords.

PC Tuneup

As your PC gets older it will typically run slower and encounter errors. This is primarily due to the installation of new software, removal of old software, disk errors, and sometimes viruses and spyware. In order to maximize the performance of your PC we look at the health of the hard disk, examine it for spyware and viruses, clean up old entries in the registry, and check that it has adequate memory to run today's applications.

Our PC Tuneup service includes:

Pickup and delivery of your system (within a 20 mile radius of Lovettsville, VA)
Physically cleaning the PC - clean dust from inside the case, CD, and diskette drives
Check the PC for hardware issues
Check the hard disk for errors
Defragment the hard disk
Investigate performance issues
Present the owner with a detailed report on findings

Alert: Antivirus 2009

There is a scam on the internet being perpetuated via spyware: Antivirus 2009. This spyware will pop up a dire warning message on your Windows desktop informing you that you have a virus. DO NOT CLICK on the link to use their "product". More than likely the only problem with your computer is Antivirus 2009 itself.

Antivirus 2009 (and its predecessor, Antivirus 2008) is installed via a trojan horse when installing software downloaded off of the internet. It can be difficult to remove if you don't get all of the pieces - it can actually reinstall itself after a reboot.

If you find you have been infected with Antivirus 2009 there are several internet sites with detailed procedures for removal. It is possible for even novice users to remove Antivirus 2009, however be careful, back up your critical files prior to attempting removal, and follow the instructions carefully.

Elvan Business Technologies can also remove Antivirus 2009 for you. The service takes 1 to 2 hours to complete and costs $99. This is available within a 20 mile radius of Lovettsville. Pickup and delivery of your computer is included. Contact us via the Contact page to make an appointment.

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