Today's viruses are so subtle and able to hide that almost the antivirus becomes useless if not accompanied by common sense. Unfortunately, cyber threats can come from anywhere for a computer connected to the internet, from the sites visited, the emails received, files and programs downloaded, from the chat and so on.
Modern malware does not harm your computer but is primarily designed to steal personal data.
Fortunately, however, some signs are always left and we have learned in another guide to recognize the symptoms of viruses on the PC .
In this short, essential but complete guide we see how to clean your PC from any virus that may have infected it and how to stay protected in the future to prevent other infections .
To deal with a computer infection, it is important to understand one thing: the antivirus prevents infections and, generally, it does it without problems.
However, it may happen that a malware is not recognized or that the user makes the mistake of manually installing the virus (perhaps disguised as a program that seems normal).
Once the virus infects your PC, the antivirus becomes a useless program that cannot remove any malware.
At that point, therefore, you need to have specific tools that you should have ready from the start to be prepared when the time comes.
1) Stop the Virus
To find a virus on your computer, you need to scan it with an antivirus.
The problem is that if the virus remains running in the background it may have the ability to hide or to become immune to any removal attempt.
rKill is the most useful and formidable program to stop any virus on your computer.
RKill is free and very easy to use.
Ideally, it would be used by starting the computer in safe mode.
Some viruses may be able to prevent programs like RKill from running.
For this reason, on the rKill download site you can download this tool with the false name iExplorer.exe or rkill.com, to "deceive" the virus.
2) Remove the Virus
Once RKill has stopped all possible viruses on your computer, it's time to clean your PC of any infections.
The best program you can use at this point is free Malwarebytes to download and install,
Once the Malwarebytes scan is complete, you can remove the viruses and clean your PC of infections.
Once done, restart your PC.
To get a second opinion and to be sure that all the infected files have been removed, it is better to do a scan with Hitman Pro (free only for 30 days) or Dr web Cureit.
3) Check and replace any changes made by the virus .
Some viruses may have changed some browser or Windows settings.
The anti-malware removes the infected files but is unable to get everything back as it was before.
It is therefore worth using some programs to fix things.
The first one to use is AdwCleaner to remove unwanted adware, Junkware, toolbars and put browser settings back on purpose.
In another article I talked about the tools to restore system files and settings after a virus or malware.
In the mega list of programs to use to remove viruses from the computer we then mentioned other indispensable tools to always have such as RTogueKiller, TDSSKiller, Hijackthis and others.
READ ALSO: Clean up a PC infected with malware by eliminating all traces manually
4) Protect your computer to prevent infections in the future .
At this point, after exiting, it is important, first of all, to pay close attention to what is being done on the internet and then to acquire protection programs.
I refer to the guide written in another post the precise instructions on the best combination of programs to protect your computer for free
move the software.
