Computer viruses, spyware, and malware infections are common causes of crashes, slowdowns, and other frustrating computer trouble. They can take the form of very loud and obvious infections, constantly pestering you to visit particular sites, insist on having you purchase particular software, and frequently redirecting your web browser to sites other than the one you intended on visiting.
They can also be virtually silent with few symptoms, passively observing and recording your activity on the computer and on the internet–even logging passwords, credit card numbers, and other sensitive information. In other cases, they actively destroy data by encrypting it with an unbreakable cipher and holding your data ransom in the electronic data equivalent of a kidnapping.
From our article on Virus and Spyware Infections:
Without the right tools, knowledge, and experience, at best viruses and spyware can be an annoyance to remove. At worst, you may corrupt your operating system, lose important data, or even accidentally erase your computer’s hard drive, losing all of your documents, photos, etc. while attempting to clean the infection. In severe cases, viruses and spyware can have a symbiotic relationship, where the virus infection protects or re-installs and regenerates the spyware after an attempted cleaning.
Tiger Custom Computers encourages our users to be informed and practice good computer health habits, but serious infections are best left to our experienced technicians who can set to work dismantling the virus or spyware infection without risking your data. If we work on your system off-site, we’ll perform a complete backup and general checkup of your system before beginning the operation.
Removing virus infections can be very similar to precise surgery–you must identify the infection, isolate it, disable and then remove it–all with minimum collateral damage to rest of the computer. Afterwards, comprehensive scans ensure there are no infections leftover and minimize any chances that the virus or spyware will regenerate.
Tiger Custom Computers is dedicated to cleaning your system of infections in a safe and effective manner. Many shops will give up and recommend backing up your data and reformatting (erasing) the computer, requiring the re-installation of the operating system, all of your programs, setting up all of your preferences again, and then manually transferring your documents, e-mail, photos, music, etc. back onto your system–possibly many hours of tedious work even for an experienced computer user.
For our technicians, this solution is a last resort. Even in those rare cases, we will rescue your data and restore it to the proper places when the reinstall is completed. We will do our best to keep your operating system intact and your files and settings safe.
Once your computer is clean, we’ll be happy to install effective, efficient antivirus and antimalware software, give you tips on safe computing and update other software on your computer in order to help prevent future infections.