How to clean your PC from viruses. Several ways: How to clean your computer from viruses absolutely free. How to clean your computer from viruses for free yourself

There are many ways to infect your PC with malware: when visiting unsafe sites, via infected media, the virus can even be sent by email. But not only the methods of infection differ in variety, but also the viruses themselves. Every year the number of viruses known to us is increasing. Among them there are, both practically harmless, like those that help us download games for free on the Internet, and very dangerous ones that can completely disable your PC. This whole situation is well understood by the developers of security software, who ruthlessly increase the prices of their programs. But, fortunately, there are still ways to clean your computer from viruses for free on your own.

Before starting treatment for viruses, of course, you need to make sure that your PC is really infected. As mentioned earlier, there are a huge number of different viruses, and if you think that they differ only in name, then you are deeply mistaken. Most viruses are really quite the same type and work and are eliminated according to the same scheme, but among them there are those that differ significantly from each other, including in the method of interacting with the system. Because of this, timely detection and elimination of a virus can be quite problematic. Today, there are twelve types of viruses known:

Worm. The main task of this virus is to "clog" the system of your PC. He does this in two ways, through the installation of various programs and through the launch of background processes that slow down your PC. In this case, the main signs of infection will be system slowdown and the appearance of various programs on your PC. To make sure the worm is present, try running the Task Manager ( keyboard shortcutAlt +Ctrl +Del) and in the “Processes” and “Services” sections, look for incomprehensible processes with names from random sets of letters and numbers. By the way, this type of virus, although it does not damage the user's personal files, can be very dangerous. If you run this problem hard on a weak PC, then freezes can be so strong that even just using the computer will become problematic, let alone cure it.
Trojan. The principle of operation of this virus is simple and clear from the name. It is hidden inside programs and is completely harmless up to the launch of this very program. However, once launched, it can be used for a variety of purposes. Most often, a Trojan horse is used to delete or steal data.
Spyware - Spyware is used to collect personal data from users remotely. Most often, cybercriminals are interested in passwords, addresses, card and account numbers.
Zombie. This type of virus got its name because it turns an infected PC into a zombie. Once on a computer, it gives its owner full control over it. Most often, the owner of the PC does not even know that someone other than him is controlling his computer.
Blocker program. As the name implies, a blocker program blocks the user from accessing something. Usually, this is either access to sites or to the system itself. The main purpose of this virus is extortion. When blocked, the user sees a message in front of him, which says that he has violated something and now has to pay a fine by sending an SMS message. It is clear that even after the funds are debited from your account, access will not be unblocked for you.
Boot viruses. Like a worm, a boot virus tries to slow down your PC's system, but while a worm slows down the OS, a boot virus slows it down. And also, as in the case of the worm, the main thing here is not to let the virus grow, as this threatens you with the fact that you will not be able to boot your PC.
Exploit. The main purpose of "exploits" is to create holes in the OS security system. Through them, attackers will be able to load other viruses into the memory of your system.
Pharming “Pharming viruses” are used mainly for website promotion. Once on the computer, this virus breaks into the browser and starts constantly redirecting the user to the attacker's website, whatever he does. This virus spreads through "trojans" and "worms".
Phishing. Phishing is a viral email campaign designed to steal their identity. In these letters, users will usually be asked to provide their personal information, promising them some kind of reward for this. The cybercriminals will use the obtained data to enrich themselves at your expense, they will steal money from accounts, issue loans, etc.
Spyware. Spyware collects user data, analyzes it, and then uses it for personal gain by the attacker. For example, to create advertisements that will definitely interest him.
Rootkit. A rootkit is a virus that allows an attacker to infiltrate your files and then hide all traces of its presence. Rootkits themselves are harmless, since they are only a means of infecting the system with other viruses. But they make the already difficult process of detecting a virus even more difficult.
Software virus. A software virus is something between a worm and a trojan. Like a “Trojan”, for its existence it needs another program, inside which it will settle, but at the same time it can self-replicate, infecting all new files.

As you can see, there are many factors indicating a possible virus infection: system slowdowns, installation of incomprehensible applications, the appearance of banners and pop-ups - all this and not only indicates the need to check your PC.

In addition, you should also not forget about the threats that do not manifest themselves in any way until the moment when it is too late to fix something. Timely scanning of your computer for viruses is a guarantee of the safety of your personal files.

Unfortunately, the only way to conduct a reliable virus scan is to use antivirus software, which is not always possible to buy. But fortunately, most security software companies offer customers a trial subscription for their product, usually for a month. This allows you to download and use the program for free during the trial period, which is more than enough to complete a one-time system scan and cleanup.

In addition, do not forget that there are methods on how to clean your computer from viruses for free on your own. Now the Internet is full of various utilities aimed at combating viruses, which can be downloaded absolutely free of charge. There are also ways to clean the system yourself, without the help of any software, so to speak “manually”. We will talk about all this a little further.

Virus cleaning utilities

Free virus removal utilities are essentially the same anti-virus software, but slightly simplified. Their functionality is much less than that of paid antiviruses from well-known manufacturers, but it is quite enough for an ordinary user with one PC available. Let's take a look at the most popular ones together.

Dr.Web CureIt. CureIt is an anti-virus utility based on the well-known Dr.Web anti-virus. Unlike the Dr.Web anti-virus itself, this utility is distributed absolutely free of charge and anyone can download it from the developer's official website. Over the years, the program has proven itself very well, it is believed that it can find almost any virus. It's very easy to use. Go to the application, click on the "Start scan" button, and at the end choose what to do with the infected files. If possible, then it is better, of course, to cure them, but if not, then you need to remove them without hesitation, otherwise the infection will spread.
AVZ. AVZ is one of the most famous free antivirus utilities. Its main advantage is its advanced functionality, which is somewhere on the level of budget antiviruses, and not free utilities. It is a little more difficult to work with him, but it is quite possible to figure it out.
HitmanPro. The antivirus utility HitmanPro is slightly less known than the previous versions, but it still has its own circle of admirers. This program is not called a killer for nothing, because it is probably the best solution if you want to clean your computer from viruses automatically for free. Many users note that HitmanPro is able to detect such viruses that even some paid programs cannot cope with.

These are just the most famous utilities, but of course there are others like NortonSecurityScan, EsetOnlineScanner or Malwarebytes. All of them are distributed free of charge, and some do not even require installation and work directly from the network. Which program to install on your PC is up to you.

How to clean your computer from viruses for free yourself

As already mentioned, there are two ways to clean your computer from viruses for free: using free utilities or manually. And if with the first method everything is more or less clear, then the second option may not be clear to everyone. Let's take a closer look at them.

Cleaning and formatting the hard drive

It was mentioned earlier that some viruses can have a detrimental effect on the operation of your system. Freezes, pop-ups, and the constant installation of new files to spread the infection are inherent in most viruses. It is clear that in such conditions it will be extremely problematic to heal a PC, if at all possible. Usually, in such a situation, working with an antivirus is simply impossible, since due to a lack of resources, the scan will take forever.

Therefore, before proceeding with direct treatment, the following should be done:

Disconnect your PC from the network. It is through the Internet that many viruses download new files (although not all). Therefore, you need to disconnect from the network as soon as possible, preferably by completely disconnecting the router so as not to give the computer a chance to connect on its own.
Go to Safe Mode. For those who are not in the know, safe mode is the mode of operation of a computer in which it uses a minimum of resources and programs. In particular, in this mode, it does not allow background applications and processes to turn on, which will not only facilitate the process of working with an infected PC, but also prevent viruses from spreading further. To turn it on, restart your PC, and during boot press the “F8” key, when the menu appears in front of you, select “Safe Mode”.

When the preparations are complete, you can start treatment. You should start by removing the applications that the virus installed on your PC (if any). This can be done through the control panel (section "Programs and Features") or through special software for uninstalling programs, if you have one installed. You need to uninstall all applications that are not system applications and were not installed by you. Finding them is quite simple, since they usually have extremely strange names: from random sets of characters, in Chinese or Arabic, and sometimes they are completely absent.

Then, without turning on the Internet, switch back to normal system operation and do the following:

Turn on "Task Manager".
Click on the "Details" button in the lower left corner of the window.
Go to the "Startup" tab and find all processes with incomprehensible names, such as those that had to be removed through the control panel.
Write down their names somewhere and then unplug.
Roughly the same should be done in the "Details" and "Services" tabs, but be careful, there are many more processes here and some of them, although not clearly signed, are important, remember that all important processes are marked as system in the next column.
And finally, the most important part, after closing all processes, in turn, start looking in the system for the names that you wrote out on a piece of paper (you need to search through the search bar in the upper right corner of the explorer), usually infected files are stored in whole folders, and therefore, having found one file , go to its location and look for others there.
When finished, you can start scanning through antivirus, the Internet cannot be turned on until the scan is completed and the disks are cleaned.
And don't forget to empty your trash, just in case.

This procedure, although rather complicated and time-consuming, ultimately helps to solve problems with almost any virus. Although there are still situations when the situation does not change even after cleaning with an antivirus, or the system is damaged too much and it can no longer be restored.

Then there is only one solution - a complete cleaning of the hard drive, so you will lose files, but at least save the PC itself. The easiest way to do this is to start installing a new OS, in the process you still have to clean up the system disk, and if you want, you can clean the rest.

How to remove a virus from a computer with an antivirus

Now that we figured out how to remove a virus from a computer manually, let's take a closer look at cleaning the system through an antivirus. There is not much to talk about here, because the developers of security software are trying to make their offspring not only reliable, but also convenient and understandable to use, and therefore even a novice user can understand its work.

It is worth noting just a few points. For example, such as the existence of two scanning modes for most antiviruses. The first is a quick search, which we use for regular checks, which takes half an hour. The second is deep cleaning, an in-depth search for threats, which can take from several hours to a whole day (It all depends on the PC). If you have reason to believe that your PC is infected, then the best option would be to combine these modes, first a quick scan to find the main foci, and then a deep scan to “finish off the remnants”.

It should also be noted that there are three options for how you can deal with infected files, namely: disinfect, quarantine and delete. The most acceptable first, as soon as it allows you to maintain the full functionality of the file. Deletion is the toughest option, since after deletion the file will disappear from your PC forever, and it's not bad if it was a personal file, but what if this file is necessary for the program or even the entire system to work correctly. Many inexperienced users always delete files to completely eliminate all traces of the virus - but this is the wrong approach. As for the quarantine, quarantined files remain on the computer and are waiting for updates that can cure them, but you will not be able to interact with them yet.

That's all you need to know about how to clean your computer from viruses for free on your own. In this article, we examined several methods for solving this problem, studied the classification of viruses and the most famous programs to combat them. Using the knowledge gained from this article, you will most likely be able to cope with a computer virus without outside help.

This is not just a program for cleaning your computer from viruses, although its main purpose is just that. It is a complete set of tools to keep your operating system safe and optimized. To be clear, here are the 3 main advantages of 360 Total Security from other freeware programs and most paid software:

A combination of several anti-virus engines, including proprietary designs and algorithms such as Avira and Bitdefender. Part of the data processing takes place using the 360 Cloud cloud service, for which your processor and RAM will thank you and respond with faster work. It is difficult to figure out how to clean your computer from viruses more efficiently;
Scanner for inactive and background programs or processes that do not carry a payload, but only slow down the computer. Such applications are closed, after which useful resources are released;
Search for junk files and remaining "tails" after removing previously installed programs. Remember, for normal operation it is not enough to clean your computer of viruses, you also need to keep its hard drives under control!

Let's say you are a sysadmin. And then some body comes to you with its computer and says - “help! all overgrown with viruses ... ”🙂 A familiar situation?

I will tell you a "terrible secret" - there are as many ways to cure a computer from viruses free of charge and legally (that is, without pirated copies of antiviruses) as there are viruses themselves. However, we want to do this as quickly and as efficiently as possible, right? Now we'll tell you how.

Step # 1 - Preparation

If your computer is still loading and does not ask you to send all sorts of SMS and other crap, then the very first step is to bang all the temporary files to hell. If the computer does not boot, then, of course, you can go straight to step # 2.
The system will not suffer from the deletion of temporary files, but you will significantly facilitate (read speed up) the work of the scanner / antivirus, which we will also use in this review. I don’t think it’s worth explaining that most of all viruses come from the Internet. And the first place on your computer where they go is just temporary files. Therefore, it is worth getting rid of these deposits of garbage first of all. There are three ways to do this: built-in Windows tools, some script, a useful program. The most effective ways are the last two, but we will look at everything in order. Before doing this, it is advisable to close all programs. Windows built-in tools
Open My Computer, right-click on the hard drive WITH, in the menu that appears, select Properties. A window will open in which there will be a Disk Cleanup button.
Click on this button, the computer will think a little for 1-5 minutes. In a new window, select all temporary files with checkboxes and click OK.

That's all. This method is not efficient enough because it does not delete all temporary files. Script
For the role of some script, I have saved my file for you, which can be downloaded from the link. Download, run, he will do something there in a black window and close. All is ready. If several users with different rights were working on the computer, then it is advisable to run this script with administrator rights, then it will crash temporary files for all users.
Useful program
The most useful program is CCleaner. It is easy to find it on the Internet, ask Yandex 🙂 Downloading and installing is also elementary, even a student will figure it out.

After starting the program, you first click the Analyze button, and then the Cleanup button. That's all.

Step # 2 - Treat

Checking the computer with some kind of scanner, antivirus and other means, for example, Spybot, which we have already talked about. I will say right away that the most effective check (and most often the fastest too) is with the help of the LiveCD. Several antivirus vendors release fresh LiveCD images that can be downloaded for free from the Internet. You just need to burn the downloaded image to a CD. One good LiveCD is released by DrWeb, you can download it from this link. Come in, press the bold download button, the license agreement falls out at the end of which the Accept button. Press the button and the LiveCD image will be downloaded to your computer. Burn it, insert it into the drive and boot. You will see something like the following:

Press the button Scanner at the top, then read the inscription Full scan left. To start scanning, click the button in the lower right corner Begin the scan... That's it, now you have to wait while he checks everything.

Then all found objects can be either disinfected or deleted. There is an arrow button in the lower right corner. If you click on it, a menu will appear, consisting of 3 items: Cure - cure, Move to quarantin - send to quarantine, Remove - delete.

Choose what you want to do with the viruses found and then press the button located to the left.

At some point, you realize that you need to completely clean your computer. How to completely clean your computer from viruses? First, check if there are those same viruses, clean the registries, clean the RAM of the device, the recycle bin ...

Cleaning the computer from viruses must be done from time to time, it is imperative that it does its job well and quickly, and also remains in working order for as long as possible. Otherwise, you will need computer repair, and very urgently.

We are treated for free

Let's talk today about how to clean your computer from viruses for free. To cure your computer from viruses for free, you need to find the AVZ program and the Curelt DrWeb utility on the Internet. To start treatment, we need to start the system in safe mode. To do this, when the computer starts up, press the F8 key.

In the context menu that appears, select the "Safe Mode" option. If this led to a system reboot, then the virus touched the Windows registry, then you need to find a file on the Internet that helps restore Safe Mode, turn it on and repeat the procedure again.

Then, after booting in safe mode, turn on the AVZ program;

Go to the file menu - system restore immediately;

Select all items and click execute.

After that, you need to go to the service menu - process manager and remove all processes that are not highlighted in green.

This is not the end of cleaning the computer from viruses, the maintenance continues and we are trying to figure out further how to clean the PC of viruses. Go to the File - Troubleshooting Wizard menu and clean up the system. This will neutralize viruses, but will not remove them.

Curelt Help

Computer virus treatment continues. As you remember, we downloaded the Curelt utility, which allows you to clean your computer from viruses for free. The program needs to be run and tested. When viruses are found, you will be prompted to disinfect or remove them. Several hours of scanning will make it possible to remove viruses from the system.

Many do not know how to clean a computer from viruses using another computer. Here's how: you need an uninfected computer with antivirus installed. Be careful not to damage the data. To implement this method, you need to remove the hard drive from the infected computer and connect it to the working one (computers are turned off). After that:

load the operating system;

enable virus scanning;

the check will end in a few hours.

Once free of viruses, you can put your hard drive back in place.

What to do if cleaning the computer from viruses did not completely remove them? In this case, you can advise using another free (or paid) utility or, in extreme cases,.

We clean the RAM

Let's talk about how to clear the RAM on your computer. If your RAM is busy all the time, take a look at what exactly. To do this, you need to open the task manager (by simultaneously pressing the ctr + alt + del keys).

After that, in the "Processes" tab, you will see the programs that are currently open by the system. To unload unnecessary programs from the operating memory, click on the "End process" button. Just try not to accidentally end the process that is necessary for the system to function.

How do I clear the RAM on my computer? To cancel automatic loading of programs into memory, remove the programs from the automatic loading list. To do this, you can download a special utility Msconfig on the network.

We've covered two of the most common ways to clean up your computer's RAM. If after that you find that your memory is constantly clogged again, contact a specialist for whom computer repair is a habit or a computer service so that they find the reason and carry out the service at a professional level.

We clean the registry

In order to remember how to clear the registry on a computer, you need to do some simple manipulations just once. So let's get started.

To go to the registry editor, you need to click start, select the Run item. Then click open and write regedit in the field that appears. Then click OK.

This is the registry editor. Among the items presented, we are interested in My computer, which needs to be expanded and from the selected list you need to expand the HKEY_CURRENT_USER section, then select Software and all computer programs will be displayed in the list that appears.

Carefully review the entire list and select from it entries about programs that have already been removed. After selecting an entry about a program that no longer exists, delete it. To do this, use the Delete button or right-click and select Delete. After deleting unnecessary entries, close the editor and reboot the system.

Removing trash from the trash can

Before emptying the Trash on your computer, we recommend that you see if there is anything useful there. If not, feel free to start cleaning.

To empty the trash, right-click on the corresponding shortcut on the desktop and left-click on "empty trash" in the context menu that appears.

If you want to view the files before deleting, then by double-clicking the left mouse button on the shortcut, open it. Browse the files and at the top, after the address bar, left-click on the phrase "empty the trash". The computer will ask you to confirm the action. Press the left button on "yes".

Now you know how to clean your computer completely. Do not forget to do such a cleaning of the system at least once every six months, and let others do the repair of computers!

Sometimes, the reason for the malfunction of the computer is its infection with viruses. Visiting various sites (and not always suspicious), opening an email attachment from an unknown author, or connecting a regular flash drive to a computer can become a source of computer infection.

How can you independently determine if your computer is infected? If, for example, when executing any commands, your PC falls into thoughtfulness, various sites open in the browser on its own, problems arise with launching programs or installation files, the ability to control the computer is blocked, the account disappeared from the welcome window, and finally, the computer just freezes when loading the operating system, then there is a very high chance that you are dealing with a malicious virus program.

In many cases, the user can cope with the virus threat by independently reading the materials on our website. What is required for this? First, you need to install the latest version of the anti-virus program and update its databases (installation and simultaneous operation of two different anti-viruses in the system is not allowed). For home computers, the free Avast antivirus is great, and for organizations. If the installation of antivirus is impossible due to the fact that the computer is blocked by a virus and there is a message with a request to send an SMS, then you should go to the sites of large antivirus companies using another computer or mobile phone and use the computer unlock service (for example https: //www.drweb .com / xperf / unlocker). In especially difficult cases, download the Kaspersky Rescue Disk image to http: // www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner, burn it to a disk, boot from it and perform a full scan of your computer for viruses.

It makes sense to use the Drweb CureIt utility from the site http://www.freedrweb.com/cureit for control cleaning of the computer from the virus. This utility does not require installation and may well be used in conjunction with another company's antivirus already installed on the computer.

In addition, we advise you to delete temporary browser files, for example, using the CCleaner program, delete suspicious files downloaded from the Internet and clean the Windows registry. However, you must be extremely careful when cleaning the system registry, because in the event of an erroneous deletion of any entry, the OS may fail or work with errors.

Finally, here are some tips on how to avoid infecting your computer. These simple rules will help your computer work properly and safely, and you save your data and nerves. To reduce the risk of infection, you must regularly update Windows. You can configure your computer to automatically download updates in Windows Update in Control Panel. It is recommended that organizations install a corporate anti-virus with centralized management and conduct anti-virus maintenance of computers. It is necessary to ensure that the anti-virus databases are updated in a timely manner. Be careful with email: do not open attachments or links from unknown senders. Protect access to mail, logon to Windows, FTP with strong passwords. It's a good idea to change them from time to time. Use a safe browser, do not install unknown plugins and add-ons. Do not visit sites suspicious from a security point of view, and do not forget to carry out a full scan of your PC for viruses from time to time.