Sprocket Technologies can rid your computer of viruses, trojan horses, spyware, and other Internet nasties, and at costs typically well below other competitors. We currently offer our virus removal service at a flat rate of $100 for residential customers. This also includes free Anti-virus software if needed. We will not only remove the original virus/malware infection, we will also install any critical updates to prevent your computer from being reinfected in the future. In these difficult economic times, we try to keep our rates as low as possible. We also understand that it can make little sense to spend Big Box money when your laptop or desktop computer may not even be worth as much as the labor to fix it.
The most frequent problems we see today come from the trojan horse variety of malware. A trojan horse is like a virus, in that it executes malicious code, but it does not self-replicate. These little nasties almost always come from a rogue or infected website or from a program (like a free game or desktop screensaver) that has been downloaded and installed on your computer. They can also come from Peer-to-Peer file sharing programs like Kazaa, Limewire, etc. It can be surprising to learn how ineffective most anti-virus programs (like AVG or McAfee, and most others) are at preventing these types of infections or removing them once they have been detected. A trojan horse can be surprisingly difficult to rid from a computer system completely, usually requiring a variety of different software tools and manual work, as they are designed to prevent you and your anti-virus solution from getting rid of them–and they can be very stubborn in this respect. You usually will need a professional to do this for you.
What are some of the symptoms that your computer is infected?
1) Advertisement pop-ups. You are basically bombarded with pop-up ads, sometimes while browsing the internet, and sometimes without even opening up your internet browser.
2) Your computer has suddenly became much slower than you recall in the past.
3) Your computer is in general running much slower.
4) When you type a search query into a search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) or type in a web address and you are taken to a website you didn’t intend to visit.
5) Your antivirus software suddenly stops working or can no longer update itself.
6) Your internet browser, like Internet Explorer or Google Chrome, suddenly don’t work, or you can’t access the internet at all.
7) A program you don’t recognize pops up and is telling you that your computer is infected with hundreds or thousands of malware related items. This normally isn’t 100% true (in quantity), but is a sure sign you have been infected.
Most malware removal must be done in-house and cannot be remove remotely. If you are experiencing any of the above listed symptoms please contact our office at your earliest convenience and schedule a time to have your computer checked.