The article explains the procedure for detecting and removing a virus from a computer. The methods described here are reliable and correct to date. We still advise you to follow and implement them carefully to avoid running in to problems.
Viruses and other online threats are an inescapable reality in today's world. Why can not you escape them? It is because you (not just you, all of us) can not live without going offline. Most of us use the internet for official or personal reasons. Just like you can not stay away from the internet for various reasons, so are viruses or other malicious infections. Hackers out there in the world know that you will go online to access your emails or search for various things like favorite music numbers, online databases, free online virus scanner, online virus removal support service, and free virus removal software among other things. Considering that you need help understanding about a virus, its effects, and removal, we have bought a free virus removal guide for you.
Instructions:
Before you begin with the virus removal procedure, you must learn about the symptoms of a virus that has intruded into your computer. Diagnose your computer carefully and check if it has been behaving oddly for some time, shows a tsunami of virus alerts (these may be even from a fake antivirus program) or pop-ups, takes more than the usual time to shut down or restart, displays low-memory alerts despite having a good amount of memory, does not load certain programs like Task Manager or your antivirus program, shuts down inadvertently showing the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) error, runs very slowly or malfunctions despite making no changes, and shows changed Desktop settings.
Other than these, if your web browser does not respond or redirects you to adult or sales lottery other other websites; your browser's homepage has been changed to something else; your email account gets flooded with unfamiliar adult, free prize money, or sales email messages; some files have double extensions after them like .jps.exe, .gif.exe, or jpg.vbs etc .; your files or folders disappear from your drives; or your computer freezes frequently, there is a virus in your computer. Since now that you have determined there is a virus in your computer, let's start cleaning and making it virus free.
If you can access your antivirus program, open it, update it and run a full virus scan . Wait for the scan to complete as it may take some time. When done, prompt your antivirus program to clean up the virus and associated infected files that were found during the scan. If you are unable to open your antivirus program, then launch your computer in Safe Mode with Networking. While your computer is starting and before the Windows logo appears, immediately start pressing the F8 key on the keyboard until you see the boot menu. Make your selection using the Down arrow key and pressing the Enter key afterwards.
Once you are in Safe Mode with Networking, open your antivirus program and repeat the procedure to remove the virus and its related files. Now that the virus has been removed, there is still no surety that it has been removed completely from your computer. Why? It is because, your antivirus was unable to detect and remove it in the very first instance when it had intruded into your computer. So, you need to take a few more steps to make sure that it does not exist anymore in your machine.
Connect to the internet and visit the official Malwarebytes website (Malwarebytes.org, prefix the extension www in front of it). Download the latest version of Anti-Malware to your computer. Save the file and run its setup file to start the installation. Follow the onscreen prompts and finish the installation of the program. Do not restart your computer even if prompted. When done, open the program, click the Update tab, and update it. Wait until all the updates have been duly downloaded and installed. When done, click on the Scanner tab, click the Perform full scan option (only this type is recommended and not the quick one), and then hit the Scan button.
Wait for the scan to finish. When finished, the program will display a list of the infected files. Select the infected files and hit the Remove Selected button. Wait while the cleanup process finishes. When done, update Anti-Malware again and close the window. Exit all the windows and reboot your computer in normal boot. You need not press the F8 key this time. When done, check your files and folders wherever they exist in your computer or have been removed by the virus. If you regularly back up your data, you need not worry if some of the files have been deleted by the virus. However, if never did so and have lost some of the important data, you should take help of an online data backup recovery service.
Additional Tips:
You should never download from malicious websites. Always download from safe and legitimate ones. Never open emails or email attachments from strangers as they may contain malicious viruses that once executed can do massive harm to your computer.