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Old 01-21-2004, 10:31 PM
Quinn Quinn is offline
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Most newer viruses are pretty smart and can circumvent AV software. You may need to manually remove them. Norton and the other big AV software creators have detailed instructions on their websites that generally work well. It's very important to ensure you follow the instructions to the letter. Advanced viruses are written in a way that allows them to continue to function or even repair themselves if they are only partially removed.

It also makes good sense to ensure you have the latest XP updates, and avoid installing cheap freeware such as Kazaa, which is riddled with spyware (which are essentially marketing viruses). Even AdAware and similar software cannot remove all the spyware, and like malicious viruses, you may need to remove them manually.

Jesse is right, no one makes viruses for Mac. I think this is mostly because the platform is proprietary and there are less companies developing languages for use on Mac. Viruses for Windows can be written in a whole host of languages. I am not a big fan of Mac. They are overly expensive and the available range of software (particularly shareware utilities, which I use often) is small.
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Man, n. ...His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth, and Canada. - A. Bierce, Devil's Dictionary, 1906
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