Thought everyone should know about a nasty virus in the Poser freebies section. I am sure the person who posted the freebie is not aware of it and I emailed them. The virus is not on their site, but on a link to free Aiko jeans. AVG Grisoft virus scanner says the site is putting a virus in Internet Explorer's temp file. The freebie is the sewing machine http://www.technowomb.com/poser/msdarr/page2.html and that site is okay, but the link on page 2 to the free Aiko jeans has a virus on its page. DO NOT CLICK on that link. The site with the virus is the finalware.tv site. I was downloading other freebies two days ago from Poser sites in Japan that I did not know of - got there through links so I don't know which site it was - and I got a horrible virus that my virus scanner did not catch until it was too late. The virus disabled my virus scanner, Zone Alarm, Spybot Search and Destroy and  a bunch of windows files immediately. I now have to reformat my hard drive which is not easy because I put most of my new PC together myself and have to reinstall everything - no "quick restore" disk. I am just sick about this because who ever is out there putting viruses in freebies and links should be boiled in oil. I have so much to do and now I get a virus. So be careful downloading from sites you don't know about. This virus is as bad as the old winpollipo32 virus and works very fast. Mac users probably don't have to worry about it. This virus I got is not detectable by your virus scanner or at least not AVG's. Don't want to scare people but this is a real nasty one, so be careful downloading.

It isn't that hard to protect yourself against viruses/trojans. Start with disabling any web-access for Internet-Explorer and use Firefox or Opera as your standard browser. Both of them are able to protect you against "Cross-Site-Scripting". But better, disable Javascript and enable it selectively for those sites you decide to trust them.

I just had to say, a long time ago I put a freebie up and someone told me it had a virus and that really was not the case, that person actually had the virus from somewhere else...are you sure they have the virus in the link?  Sharen

finalware.tv was a temporary domain that the people at poserclub.jp used a while ago, I guess they must have let the registration expire as the link you mentioned is going to a parking page.

That's PaganArtist's site and there isn't any virus. I was there earlier today and downloaded that same file along with a few others including the new sewing table. I downloaded and installed them without a problem, and I really, really trust my virus scanner.

Are you using Norton or McCaffey as your virus scanner? If so you got a false positive. Those 2 virus scanners are notorious for that, along with a long history of missing viruses that other scanners have picked up.

drifterlee Is that a new avatar? It's very cool looking. Sorry to hear about the viri infection. I hope you get all your stuff back up and running soon.

Drifterlee
I'm sorry to hear about the virus you picked up.  I agree with ADP, stay away from IE and start using Firefox.  It has better security built into it.  IE has always been a bad choice for surfing the internet these days.  It was OK 10 years ago but not anymore.

Quote - Drifterlee
I'm sorry to hear about the virus you picked up.  I agree with ADP, stay away from IE and start using Firefox.  It has better security built into it.  IE has always been a bad choice for surfing the internet these days.  It was OK 10 years ago but not anymore.

Very true!

Attached Link: Firefox

Firefox: Don't forget to install at least this little helpers (Firefox AddOn's)

Adblock Plus
NoScript

Drifterlee I am so sorry about you catching a bug. Whom did you email about this as I never got an email from anyone not even from the man that lets me host my freebies there if there is a bug I should let Doug know about it. That was my freebie you're talking about so I will hightail it over there and see what is going on.

Edit to add: The link I had to poserclub is the old link and is no longer useable. I am taking that Aiko freebie out  and maybe repost it another time just to be on the safe side. Thanks again!

The item has been removed I also found a link I had for an artist free items at Yahoo was going to an adult only page it too has been removed.

I emailed you - I thought - using the "Contact us' form that is on your site. Yes, AVG said the site was putting a virus into IE temp's file. I download too much stuff. I have freebies I will never use. But the virus I caught I know I got from a Japanese site because I can't understand Japanese and was clicking on links to find freebies and got some of the nasty Anime porn stuff came up - and those sites always seem to have viruses that work through some kind of java applet. I am glad I have my old PC or  I would be in a real mess. Thanks guys

This is why I use Avast AV program as well and scan all the files I download.
I dl a lot of freebies too and I use Firefox browser, never any problems.

I disable ALL java.

IE browsers = evil.

Is Avast free? I have found viruses in my java cache so I normally disable it, but I may have forgotten on my new PC which is the infected one.

Acadia, I am glad you did not get a virus warning. I use the free Grisoft AVG virus scanner which is usually rated pretty high. I do not use Norton or the other commercial ones because virus writers disable them. The virus I got that wrecked my new PC was from a Japanese freebie site I found by accident. AVG did not detect it as a virus. Arghh!!! This is such a pain in the arse.

I use the free version of avasti Antivirus and it seems to be working out real good,
Along with that I use "IceSword" an anti Rootkit software, it is great!
And I run "RegRun Reanimator" on my computer, it runs at boot up and is great for rootkits, etc.
I was using just AVG, but that is how I caught  a Virus/Trojan, AVG didn't catch it. I almost had to wipe my hardrive before I found out about IceSword and RegRun Ranimator and then avasit

I will go get icesword and RegRun Reanimator. Thanks

Got icesword, but how do I use it?

I agree with previous posts-switch to Opera as it checks every site before it loads it up. If the site is blacklisted it will give you a warning. If you want to be on an even safer side, browse the web with Linux. A techie friend of mine said it could even run from a CD rom. This will of course not save you if the virus is in the zip. AVG is pretty good but I found it dormant sometime because I happened to have a trojan downloader which it only detected once in the system restore file. One could of course argue that it was a false positive but I got rid of the restore file to make sure... Anyway, Opera is a good choice, but sadly isn't supported everywhere. I have issues with some forums for instance. Good luck!

Firefox is the easiest browser very simple.
You don't need anything fancy. Just install.

Yup, Avast AV has a free edition. I've used this for 2 years now.
It hasn't failed me yet.

I'd be lost without it! I t has saved my hard drive from virus more
than once!!!

Attached Link: http://www.castlecops.com/t165203-IceSword_Instructions_in_English_Illustrated.html

http://www.castlecops.com/t165203-IceSword_Instructions_in_English_Illustrated.html

Thanks all. I did find AVG to be much better than Nortorn and the other commercial one, but it does occasionally miss things. I did download AVAST and I will install it. I do have Firefox and Thunderbird, but all the Daz readmes need IE. What a pain!

I haven't used IE in ages, but I'm sure there are some websites out there that will guide users through securing it. I think the last time I used it, you could even select some sites to be treated as "known" or "trusted" sites that can safely run things like javascript or vbscript (which is very scary) or whatever.

If you do continue to use IE, you should make sure that you are using the very latest version, as MS tends to not update older products, and many of them have very well known vulnerabilities. Some of which might even bypass the security stuff you set up above.

If you don't really believe that IE is more vulnerable, you should do a little reading. Basically, in order for MS to allow some of the neat things (like install an active X control, or allow remote sites to do things like scan your computer for viruses through the website), it has to write software that is both very complex, but also allows remote sites to be granted access to things that really weren't expected websites to do. Unfortunately, as you add complexities, there is more room for mistakes- and these are where the really bad wholes that we hear about come from. It's not a myth that IE is more vulnerable than Firefox or other browsers. It's just the nature of letting the browser do so much, that makes it so hard to keep things running safely.

I think the new stuff at daz doesn't force IE open. It just uses whatever the OS thinks is the default  browser (which is IE on windows, unless you change it yourself) And the files you see when they open up the browser are actually on your machine, so you could even block IE from the internet using Zonealarm, and still be able to read the readme files just fine.

I use Opera for most online activity but sometimes it isn't supported. Then I use the latest Firefox. I only resort to IE last. Both McAfee and Norton were destroyed by a bug at different times so I know they don't always work. My Inet server used AVG for a while but now they've switched back to Norton...sigh. And it let in a Trojan, one of the backdoor type. Found it when I downloaded a neat little package called "Advanced WindowsCare V2 personal" and ran it to see why my machine was so slow. A Japanese site dumped over 3000 cookies and junk on me including porn images in my browser cache that I never knew was there...sigh. Reclaimed over 25gb of disk space using this program. I did not pick up the virus or Trojan here and have no idea how long it was sitting on my computer. This program also cleaned it for me. Now I run it on a regular basis.

Well, I am in hell trying to reformat my hard drive thanks to this virus from a Japanese site. Windows Xp will not wipe the C: drive , it just deletes windows amd reinstalls it, leaving lot of error codes. I tried to take the drive out and out it in another machine as a slave drive and the idiots bolted the main drive in from the wrong side so I have to take the motherboard out to get to it. Have a migraine right now.

I think you should be able to reformat it (but it's been ages since I've done that stuff).

You should have a point where you can repartition the drive. If you can do that, delete the old partition and recreate it. That will force it to reformat.

Okay dumb question...  If I decide to use Firefox, I am guessing that I will need to turn Internet Explorer off.   What's the best way to do that, uninstall it?

It will ask you which browser you wish to have as a default. You can easily switch from one to the other if that is what you wish to do.

You don't have to turn anything off or remove anything from your computer. If you install Firefox, you can use it as a second browser if you want. For myself, I have gutted IE off my system. I don't recommend anyone do that unless you know what you are doing. Firefox is now my main browser.

I can also view Daz readme's just fine in Firefox too.

You don't need or shouldn't need IE for that.

Thanks Dajadues! I'll go give it a try.

pagan, thx fr the sewing machine and thx fr deleting the link to the yahoo group,
which had various files concerning hitler and nazi items.  I dunno if the latter
qualified it as a neo-nazi site.

There's a Smith Micro product that people might be interested in -- and no, this one isn't Poser Pro.  It's called Anonymizer.  It's not an anti-virus, but it sure helps out with the internet security end of things - in more ways than one:

Anonymizer

It works for me.  One quick way to judge Anonymizer's effectiveness is via the agency of those web ads which regularly tell you things like "great oppotunities for low mortgage rates in [your hometown]!!!!!!!!".  Instead, with Anonymizer activated, the ad reads in one of two ways: either it'll say "Anonymizer does not recommend visiting this site", or else it'll say "Anonymous Proxy" instead of "your hometown".

The downside is that it tends to slow up your web browsing.  But it's a snap to turn off when you are dealing with websites that you trust.  One button proxy browsing activation/deactivation.

Anonymizer has a lot of other functionality built into it, too.  Encryption, etc..  It's certainly worth a look.

For anti-virus/firewall purposes -- I've recommended this one in other threads.  It works for me, and it works with a small system resource footprint, as anti-virus packages go.  Plus for anti-spyware: it's one of the best (perhaps even THE best) single packages around.  They also offer a free online virus/spyware system scan:

Panda

And yes, when it comes to browsers, I fully agree with what appears to be the majority opinion in this thread: Firefox is the way to go.

BTW - Zone Alarm probably has the best firewall on the market.  Too bad their anti-virus stinks.

BTW 2 -- with Panda running and Anonymizer activated (plus I have a hardware firewall), my machine completely fools the Shields Up website.  Anonymizer alone foils many of the Shields Up tests.  If you've never visited Shields Up, then you most definitely should.  The Shields Up website will probe your system's security for you in depth:

Shields Up

If nothing else, I'd definitely advise visiting Shields Up.  It can be a sobering experience for anyone who is convinced that their PC is 100% bulletproof.

Shields up is a cool place.

I use AVG Anti Virus, Zone Alarm Firewall and Spware Guard which also runs in the background. I also have Spybot Search and Destroy and AdAware SE Personal that I run occasionaly to make sure nothing got past the other programs.

While I was at the Mozilla site I found they have just released Firefox 3 Beta 2, but it is only recommended for developers and testers at this point.

XENOPHONZ, thanks for the link to Shields up. :) I checked it out and found that my computer has a good defense except for 2 ports. So I checked my firewall and found it had been disabled. Must have done that while installing AT&T's AV Suite and forgot to turn it back on. Had I not checked this site out I wouldn't have caught that. BTW:Can I install ZoneAlarm without completely removing Windows Firewall? We all know Windows Firewall is not too great.

When I caught that Virus/Trojan a couple of weeks ago (that is when I switched to Avasti, started using IceSword and Regrun Reanimator (the latter two are for root kits)
I also switched from "ZoneAlarm" to "Comodo", everything I have read on it so far says it is better than ZoneAlarm....Well Ihave used it for a couple of weeks and I can't complain..it seems to be doing a real good job

Yes, you can go into Control Panel and Security and turn off Windows Firewall, then install Zone Alarm. I tried Commodo before Zone Alarm but I didn't like Commodo.

Norton's also fools Shields Up.

I agree about Zone Alarm being the best software firewall.  Used it for years.  Great piece of kit.

Hi Drifterlee

This may sound crazy,  but since you now have two computers,  why not set one up for the internet and one for work.  Keep the one for work offline.

Cheers

Pat

Folks, don't forget those hardware firewall/router gadgets you can get at your local computer store. By default, they don't let anything in, so very solid (that isn't initiated from behind them). The advantage is that your computer doesn't get all those zombies' messages that it then has to waste CPU cycles sorting through. I believe those can number in the thousands per hour- which I would imagine could add up to a noticable reduction in computing power.

Quote - But the virus I caught I know I got from a Japanese site because I can't understand Japanese and was clicking on links to find freebies and got some of the nasty Anime porn stuff came up

My sympathies about the virus but, isn't doing the above a little naive? As a general rule of thumb, if you don't know what it is then leave it alone.

Quote - XENOPHONZ, thanks for the link to Shields up. :) I checked it out and found that my computer has a good defense except for 2 ports. So I checked my firewall and found it had been disabled. Must have done that while installing AT&T's AV Suite and forgot to turn it back on. Had I not checked this site out I wouldn't have caught that.

You are certainly welcome, blue!

As a general rule: anyone who browses the internet in the clear these days likes to live dangerously.  Software firewalls are helpful: but a software firewall operating underneath a hardware firewall is better.  And as has already been discussed -- not all software firewalls are created equal.

And a firewall is only one aspect of protection against the various threats that are out there.  It's really too bad that ZoneLabs can't seem to get their act together when it comes to anti-virus / anti-spyware (a LOT of apps are full of leaky holes when it comes to anti-spyware).  Zone Alarm's firewall is superb -- but their anti-virus is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

That's why I decided to go with Panda -- for the sake of the balance.  Although I've also pondered the possibility of using the Zone Alarm firewall, with Panda's anti-virus and anti-spyware running underneath.  However: I'm not 100% certain that such an arrangement would work correctly.  One of the first things that Panda's internet protection suite does upon install is to tell you that you need to get rid of the competition.......uh.......that this other program over here migh "interfere" with correct functionality, so you need to remove it.  And I have to admit that differing firewalls might actually interfere with one another.  Which is where the difficulty comes in when one company makes the best firewall, but they also make a lousy anti-virus / anti-spyware -- while another company makes "one of the best firewalls", but has a much better anti-virus / anti-spyware suite along with it.

So you pays your money and you takes your choice.