r/antivirus

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Hey, I'm sorry if I sound dumb asking all this.

Was downloading a mod for No Man's Sky, but apparently it was an infostealer. Got it from a YouTube video but theres a reddit thread saying its a fake website that executes an infostealer that hides in Telegram or Steam files or something along those lines.

I deleted the files, ran multiple AV, changed my passwords on everything and now I'm resetting my PC using Windows Reset and wiping all my files.

Ive been told (quite rudely) by someone that this does not fix anything at all but ive also read comments that said its okay?

So am I safe or do I really need to nuke and use the USB method? I cant do that for a few days unfortunately

My pc got hacked about a week ago, whats the best way to make sure nothing malicious is on it?

I was trying to visit hir.harvard.edu (Harvard International Review), but every time I click it, I'm redirected to a completely different website.

At first I assumed my computer had adware or malware, so I tried pretty much every troubleshooting step I could find, such as removing all browser extensions, clearing cookies and site data, and clearing the browser cache.

The redirect still happens.

I also came across this article from PCrisk about "Harvard.edu ClickFix malware" (https://www.pcrisk.com/removal-guides/35203-harvardedu-clickfix-malware) but I'm not sure whether it's describing the same issue I'm seeing or something different.

Could this be a problem with the website itself rather than my computer? Has anyone else recently experienced redirects from hir.harvard.edu?

I'd appreciate any advice. Thanks!

I am a student who just bought a new laptop. I would like to make it last and protect my personal data. What’s a worthwhile antivirus software for a student/gamer? I mainly access Gmail, Canvas, and Google workspace on the internet, but sometimes I go onto Nexus Mods and Patreon for gaming mods. On my last laptop, I had a problem where Chrome would keep switching its search engine to Yahoo or something.

I was looking for japanese guitar tabs and found this post recommending guitarlist(dot)net I didn't realize that It was an http website until my browser warned me that it was not a secure site.

I didn't do anything there I only stayed for 20 seconds and then closed it. After all the page wasn't working anymore and there only was an announcement saying that their activity has stopped.

https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/s/OBx82nrAkA this is the post where I found out about the page.

Virus total says that is safe.

My question is, should I be worried?

Just realized that all the websites shared in that reddit post are http...

Last christmas my parents bought me a new laptop since mine was quite old. They also bought me a year of McAfee subscription. Tbh I've never really used an antivirus but I think the laptop came with a free trial or something bc i had it for a while and then at some point it started notifying me that i should renew it. I could have used the code from the 1 year pack that my parents bought me but I didnt really need so i kept postponing it. Last week my mom, who kept my older laptop for working, called me bc she feared that she might have gotten a virus. After i look it up i saw that it was just an extension that she might have downloaded by mistake and after searching in reddit for a free antivirus, I downloaded Malwarebytes. After that she kept

asking me to install the McAfee that she bought me so I look up on the internet about it and apparently everyone says how bad it is and why you shouldn't download it. I really had no idea about its reputation. Should I install it ??? Is it really that bad??? I mean It is already bought so I'd feel bad to waste it but if its that bad, well, im not sure of what to do.

Hey guys, I've been having the worst paranoia I've ever experienced in all of my life starting from last June.

I haven't been able to think straight for the past month as I'm extremely worried about my cybersecurity, so worried that I feel that 5 windows reinstall via usb wouldn't be enough to get rid of anything hidden. I don't even feel okay to login to any of my accounts with worry of being compromised and such.

I've used Windows Defender, Norton 360 For Gamers, HitmanPro, and Malwarebytes but none of those caught anything but still I can't get this feeling that somebody compromised my accounts and are in them or that I'm constantly being spied on while feeding them my sensitive information.

It (My thoughts) could be because I've been constantly reading about people's experiences with say Mr. Beast Infostealer, Lummastealer, Renpy Stealer, and all that just makes my situation worse when thinking about it.

I've changed my passwords numerous times after reading some people's experiences because I wouldn't want it to happen to me, and to think that the hacker could be logged in without you ever knowing since it shows your location just makes even me feel unsafe although I'm not affected, at least that I know.

If say I had an Infostealer or any sort of malware, which wouldn't be something I'm aware of until I find out (Never did anything for captchas as I've read it's dangerous) How do I completely get rid of it? Could it get into my motherboard or other system components? Because at this point I feel like the only way to feeling normal and being happy & carefree again would be to purchase a whole new PC.

I'm sorry to the mods for my unusual amount of posts made recently but I just feel so paranoid and don't know who to turn to, I just want to feel okay again.

I use windows 11 on my laptop. I downloaded a game installer from some sketchy website and ran it despite the security warning. The installer just kept freezing so I eventually deleted it. This morning I woke up to notifications in my phone from google saying they signed me out of my windows device because they detected malware in my device and suspicious activity. All 3 of my google accounts. I also got emails from some apps and social medias that somebody tried to log in and told me to ignore if that wasn't me. The attacker got my instagram and posted a story of crypto scam and also my discord which they sent everyone a dm of crypto scams. I changed the passwords and terminated all other devices. I also saw an unknown device logged in my telegram so I terminated it. I'm pretty sure my phone is safe but it's my laptop that got malware but windows defender and malwarebytes scans keep coming out positive. Please help.

My brother has an old PC that he constantly uses to download files from shady untrustworthy sources, Its like hes treating his old pc as a guinea pig for his experiments and tbh im worried that his habits could eventually affect my own PC... so it it possible for malware or any virus to jump between devices on the same network, or am i overthinking this?

This should speed up virus scans. My idea is as follows:

The program would check for activity that occurred on the storage media and then scan *only* the files that were executed/rewritten to/created since the last scan.

This would be in addition to the directories a quick scan handles.

Is it useless in 2026 the avg compared to Windows antivirus???

It’s called Trojan32: WinSteal SA. Not sure what to do