[nitro]

Originally Posted by Dean C

Anyone who wants to use this article has to ask for my permission privately yes There's nothing a little over the top about these pests. All I've tried to do is provide an informative article to people who are new to getting rid of them to try and help

Nice guide for those who really dont know what these things are by now.

I have to say most comunities I see have similar allready posted, theres likely to be thousands of them kicking about, some better some not, yours is the first post I have ever seen which just offers some tips and is actually copyrighted.
Your choice of course and you can understand someone being annoyed if someone has copyied word for word but I really think this is somewhat OTT. Why dont you just add a copyright to your sig, then you would cover every post you make. I say this because you could very easily come accross one of those other guides which may not be older and looks very similar and I would dread to think you would really try to sue someone for something they may actually not have done. Im guessing next, when anyone who recomends using one of the softwares you have chosen to mention after reading your post will also have to credit your post as the original source ?

</end sarcasm>

By the way I have used amongst some others spybot S & D for some time and there are regular updates.

Avast is a very good free AV package with excellent live protection, unlike AVG free edition.

Shorewall is an excellent firewall as your main entry blockade (sorry not for windows users), and then you can use other firewalls on your internal computers if you so wish. Its not just about having closed ports, a closed port will tell a hacker that a computer exists at the address, (when a hacker locates a computer they then scan for anything open, its one of those situations where any hole will do), a port in stealth mode will slow down a scan on your IP and give away nothing about a computer in existence. You should also ensure that your internet entry unit never responds to any form of ping, (unless you need it to for a specific reason, but thats the same as using an open port).