computer running slow? Has your machine somehow acquired a life of its own? Or do you simply
desire a deeper and more meaningful connection? Be one with your operating system. It's Arizona's
computer guru, Mike Swanson, and his show starts now. Listen in, chat in, and watch live streaming
at gurushow.com. Want your voice to be heard? Call in with your questions and riddles. The number is
520-790-2040. This is the Computer Guru Show on AM1030, KBOI, The Voice. I got microphone problems
going on over here. What's going on with that? Want to try this one? Ah, okay, there we go.
All right, now we know which microphone to use. Ken's going to apologize. I'm sorry, Mr. Guru.
All right, this is the Computer Guru Show. My name is Mike. I deal with your technology
problems and treat you like a person in the process. That's what I do. 790-2040 if you want
to be a part of that.
That's 520-790-2040, and we'll see what we can do to make all of your technology woes go away.
This is your one hour of free tech support that is for the masses. So if you are looking for
answers to questions, that's what I'm here for. So I heard at the office, I stopped by the office
on the way over here, and I was told that apparently I've been talking about phones too
much. So somebody called in and said that I should stop.
Talking about phones.
But it's your show.
Well, I know, but it is my show. But at the same time, you know, I want to make sure that
the listeners know that I am listening, right? So we're not going to talk about phones today.
Okay.
Even though I still have Verizon issues. That'll be next week then.
I did have Verizon issues, but I switched.
You switched? What did you switch to?
T-Mobile.
T-Mobile? Okay. All right. That's it. That's all we're talking about phones. All right. So now we're going to talk about viruses. And we do,
one of these shows about once a year or so where it's time to explain how the viruses work and more specifically what the
motivation is, because every so often I hear, and this is sort of a quote, really, why do these people do this? Are they just
getting their jollies off is what I heard yesterday. So, you know, by writing these viruses. And I will tell you right now that
there may be some jolly involved, but not much at all.
Most of it's money. Lots and lots of money. Ridiculous amounts of money is really what it comes down to. It's, it's really, it's, yeah, there's a lot of dollar signs.
How does that work?
All right. So if you, most of the viruses these days tend to be the CryptoLocker infections. They're the, they're the ones that are, you know, they take your, your stuff, they, they take your information and encrypt it while you're not looking.
And, uh, you know, once, once you get that infection, it takes all of your documents, your pictures, and it makes it so you can't view it anymore. And then when it gets done with all of that, it's pops up a
message on your screen and says, Hey, you want your stuff back? That'll be two.
bitcoins, please, or they'll have you get on the Walgreens and get a pre-paid visa card where you can pay them with that. And generally it's not cheap. I would say on average. It's around $800.
to get your data back and yeah that's no joke it now to be to credit these guys they tend to
honor their word business-wise right so if you happen to get the crypto locker infection
and all of your data gets gets taken away from you and you don't have any backups you know that
every week we go you need a backup you need to have a backup you must have backups uh so if you
don't have a backup and then you're forced to pay the ransom then uh i would say that most of the
time with the experience that we've had with it where we've directly paid people to get other
people's data back uh about i don't know nine out of ten times we get the data back it's not bad
it's pretty good yeah uh only one time uh have we paid and not gotten the data back which was kind
of unfortunate
um but this is why we we harp on the whole backup thing you must have backups you need a backup
that's just that's just how it works i mean in in every aspect of your life there's there's a plan b
right and you need to have that with your computer as well so you either have a separate copy of the
data or you synchronize to the cloud you synchronize to us over at computer guru uh we would love to
make sure that your data just does not go away so get me safe people backups so anyway
yeah
yes there's lots of money involved in fact there's there's websites now that you can go out
and it's effectively like uh it's almost like a franchise right where you give them you give them
three thousand dollars i think is the amount and uh they basically set you up with your own
infection that you can send out to the masses right with the with this crypto locker stuff
they set you up with a with a bitcoin wallet and they they tell you how it's like a class they
teach you how to you know put it on the server and they teach you how to you know put it on the server
and how to to send it out to uh via email usually or put it on the website so that you can get you
know people you can infect people and you get tech support for the for basically ransoming
people's software their documents and so that's that's how big this this money is right now it's
to the point where these people have enough money that they can just basically say well
we're not going to ransom individuals anymore we're going to teach you how to ransom people
uh i don't know it's next is going to be some sort of pyramid scheme i'm sure right but it's
these are the big viruses that are out there right now these are the ones that are the most dangerous
right because we hear people talking about all the time uh yesterday i was having a conversation
with somebody and they're like yeah well you know we're not really all like concerned with people
hacking in so we don't need this you know super fancy firewall and i was like well yeah but that's
not the part you're really worried about anyway right you should be worried about you should be
worried more about email infections
and email just needs to go away but um at the very least the zip file extension needs to go away
just because so many people fall for it they get these infections they you know they get this
message in their mail it says your your package wasn't sent from ups or um let's see what are the
other big ones uh you know any of them off the top of your head have you seen any of them no i haven't
what was going through my mind is obviously this is very
prevalent out here a lot of people prey on or they would not be doing it yeah i mean there is there
is a lot of that you and you have different sort of subcategories of bad people out there that are
preying on different demographics um and those targeted phishing messages are are you know they're
the ones that most people will fall for right you're there's a lot of ones that are like paypal
like you know your paypal account has been suspended or uh
there's some really good ones from chase i mean they are convincing western union they don't do the
western unions much anymore not so much uh but the the chase ones right now are wow they're they're
convincing because i looked at one and i can i can spot these things just immediately looking at him
going oh that's that's that's not even real and i looked at it and i was just like really you know
and there was there was like a good five seconds where i was like wow this is legit right and i was
and uh upon upon further inspection i mean yes it was fake but you couldn't tell by looking at it
it was just i knew it was fake by circumstance so there's some really really good uh phishing
emails that are out there that are trying to infect you um but a lot of them have to do with
something like you know there's a package or um uh right now they're doing a bunch of tax ones
you know like you're uh you're to collect your tax payment we need you to fill out this form
or whatever and uh so just be be careful be careful about just if it's in a zip file at all
yeah just don't even open it delete it what about the rule of thumb if you don't recognize the
sender well they're phishing this the the sender name a lot of times i mean the sender name looks
legit unless you you know do some investigation um but what it really comes down to is that the
you know it's it's about the type of file that they're sending you as an example um
for most of the people we host email for bunches of people in town um and all over the world
actually we host a lot of email accounts and for the majority of them by default we just deny zip
accounts or zip files just right out of the box just don't even try because the zip file will
never get there i'll just say good rule of thumb if there's an attachment be suspicious i don't
yeah yeah that's me and that's that's a very good thing to do and that's a very good thing to do
um and and luckily outlook has fixed a lot of the problems that they used to have with uh auto
opening attachments and infecting the machine and stuff like that but there are some things that
we're going to talk about after the break which is uh ways that we can make sure that you are very
safe and as usual this episode this first segment brought to you by perfection auto works if you
want somebody who really takes the time to get invested in you you the customer you should get
out and see mike emery down at perfection auto works and i'll see you next time bye bye
listen to the commercials this break because he's in there for contact information this is a computer
guru show we'll be right back computer troubles need some advice call in now mike swanson will
be back after these messages the computer guru show am 10 30 kvoy the voice your technology guru
mike swanson is answering all your questions one by one yes science so chime in with yours
the website is gurushow.com tune in click in and kick back this is a computer guru show
if you'd like to be part of the show give us a call 790 20 40 that's 520 790 20 40 or you can
join us in the chat room at gurushow.com if you go to the listen live link there is absolutely a
chat room that you can participate in one of the questions in there was asking about if we could
solder the something back onto a motherboard that got broken off and the answer is yes uh and uh
just so i don't have to type while i'm in the middle of typing or uh talking here uh by the
description given which is that it'll be available to you in the chat room at gurushow.com
looks like all the traces are are probably okay yeah i can probably fix that for you bring it on
down we're up until five o'clock today and nine to six monday through friday so once again give
us a call 790 20 40 if you'd like to be part of the show and get some free tech support on
now um infections there's a lot of people that switch over to the mac platform because they're
trying to avoid the infections and that's i'm glad that works for some people for right now
and the truth is is like you know i have a mac in front of me i'm not going to be able to
right now and a pc but um you're you can't run far when it comes to that stuff there's a
new infections coming out every day for mac which is uh kind of unfortunate um but they attack in a
different way they attack the weak link which is you the user uh so much like with the the uh
those phishing emails where people uh basically click on a link or open a program in order to
install it
uh same thing is happening on the mac now uh because instead of trying to hack the operating
system which for a long time was really where they were going they were exploiting the weaknesses of
the operating system itself um once they've gotten to the point where that just doesn't work anymore
or it's not reliable enough or it doesn't generate enough income for them right because they're not
getting enough people they had to switch tactics and so the couple of different tactics that they
use is they get basically they're not getting enough people they're not getting enough people
so they basically emotionally fool you all right so they they send you an email that for whatever
reason whatever the the reasoning is within that email that makes you click on it you'll click on
it you'll open the application and suddenly you're infected now a lot of times it's so fast right that
you just and it doesn't do anything overt right you just click on it nothing happens all right
it's already done all right it's already done what it needs to do it's it's just instant and
basically then it waits now
If it's one of those CryptoLocker ones, it's in the background.
It's encrypting all of your documents.
You don't even know it.
So if you notice that your machine is just unreasonably slow after opening an email,
just really, really slow for no apparent reason, right?
It used to be running nice and fast, and then suddenly, yeah, there's this huge delay.
Yeah, you need to turn that computer off, right, and bring it down immediately.
Get down to the guru.
That's right.
But that way we can stop it because the encryption process itself is resource-intensive.
It takes a lot of sort of horsepower to make that happen.
So it's going to be sucking all of the performance out of your machine
while it's trying to do this encryption in the background.
So, yeah, if your machine is just real slow, like unreasonably, uncharacteristically slow,
then, yeah, you've got a problem.
And even if it is an infection, right, the only other time that your computer is really going to be like that,
where it's just very, very slow, then you probably have a failing hard drive
or you've got a bad RAM chip or something that needs to be looked at anyway.
So if you notice that stuff, then it's time to bring it in.
Now, one of the other ways that you can avoid this is that instead of going the Mac route, right,
if you want to pay four times too much for a machine, that's cool, right?
If you've got the money.
You can absolutely do that.
Just know that you're not completely safe.
And you still have to have some type of skepticism about the things that you click on,
about the places that you go.
And make sure that you keep yourself safe and have backups.
Always have backups.
It's like every break I have to say it.
But there are some things that you can do on the PC side to really straighten that out.
PCs have a weakness, right?
Everybody's like, well, they're so vulnerable.
And the reason that it is is because back in Vista,
when they decided to not make your machine vulnerable, everybody complained, right?
They were like, oh, I don't want to have to click OK all the time
or type in a password every time something dangerous could potentially be happening
because it was popping up.
There was even a famous sort of commercial that Mac did based on the Mac PC commercials
where it was like, are you sure you want to do that?
Yes.
All right.
That is.
That is a mechanism that keeps you safe.
And the problem is, is that now Microsoft sort of backed that off a little bit, right?
For Windows 7, just to kind of make people shut up.
They were complaining so much about, well, why do I always have to click on this thing?
It makes the screen flash and then I have to click on yes.
And the answer is you don't have to click on yes.
Really, if you use a Mac and you're very familiar with this already then,
which is anytime you try to install a piece of software,
it pops up a box.
It says, hey, what's your password, right?
It's not just clicking yes.
You actually have to type a password in in order to make it happen.
And you can do that in Windows.
There's some settings that you can put in the machine to make it behave just like a Mac
when it comes to how you install software, which includes infections.
So rather than, you know, you're just surfing around
and then suddenly you get a password box that says, hey, enter your password.
And all you're doing is surfing the web or checking your email.
It shouldn't be asking for that.
That should be a giant red flag that says, oh, something bad's happening here.
And you have the opportunity to stop it at that moment.
So we have a couple of different options for that down at Computer Guru.
So we can basically, you can sign up for the GPS package.
It's the Guru Protection Services, which basically we lock down your machine.
It's $30 a month.
You get antivirus and anti-malware included and we lock your machine down.
You're not going to get any infections.
And if you do, I'll fix it.
And that's just how it works, right?
I am confident enough to say that I can prevent you from getting an infection.
And if you get one, I will solve that problem because you're not getting one.
That's just how it works.
On my machine, as an example, my PC, I use all the time.
I haven't had antivirus on that thing in three years.
Zero infections.
And I go all kinds of places I shouldn't because I'm following you guys around.
As far as, you know, I went to this website and got an infection.
Oh, yeah, let me try it out.
I want to see what happens.
So there are ways to protect yourself.
There are ways to keep yourself from getting an infection.
And if you've got, especially if you've got like kids, right, that are doing the most dangerous thing in the world,
which is searching for song lyrics.
Yeah, that is the number one way to get an infection, by the way.
If you are looking for the lyrics to a song, chances are you're infected already.
It's that dangerous.
But if you've got kids.
It's great because you can set an account up for the kids and completely lock that account down.
All right.
You're not you're not saying, well, you can't go to certain places or you're not saying that you're not.
You don't have to be 1984 with them.
You don't have to be overly Orwellian, but you can make it so that no matter what they do, they're not going to infect the computer.
And that's that's a pretty good deal.
So we either offer it as a monthly service or we do it as a one time.
All right.
It's just you want to do the one time thing.
It's 300 bucks.
And I'll make sure that you never get an infection again on that computer.
So if you're interested in that type of stuff, give me a call.
You can either call me here at the show 790-2040 or down the shop 304-8300.
Howard's down there today.
He'd be happy to talk with you about it if you want to.
I'm sure he just loves the extra phone call.
So 304-8300 if you want to if you want to irritate him.
Get ready, Howard.
Yeah, he's just he wants to, I don't know, get things done.
And then the phone's ringing.
And I think he's there by.
Himself today.
So, yeah, he's I'm sure he's going to love that.
Let's see.
Chat room stuff.
Oh, yeah.
They're talking about song lyrics in there.
I know what you should do is if you're really looking for the song lyrics, listen to the song.
There you go.
No, actually, there's there's some ways.
There's a couple of places that you can go.
There are like two different.
AZ Lyrics is one of them.
AZ Lyrics is a good, OK site to go to.
Now, they have advertising on their site, which is where.
Most of these infections come from.
And a lot of people just don't understand how that works.
But basically, it's let's imagine that all the websites are like individual properties.
And on some of these properties, they have these big, giant billboards on them.
And they hire another company to come and put things on that billboard.
And so the property managers themselves don't necessarily have any control over the advertising that's happening there.
They're just saying this space for rent.
And you go ahead.
You go ahead and manage that.
So the ad brokers will go out and find advertisers.
And sometimes those are those infectious people, the people that are causing infections.
So they just buy legitimate advertising.
There was an instance where they heavily invested in PBS and MSNBC.
And basically, millions of people got infected from the PBS website because of an ad banner that was on the website.
Now, it wasn't PBS's fault.
They don't have any control over the advertising.
But for a while there, PBS was a dangerous place to go until they figured out how to get rid of that ad banner.
No bueno.
Yeah, so it was bad news.
They should have done a whole episode of Sesame Street about viruses and infections and stuff.
That's how you know the times are changing, man.
All right, let's go ahead and take a quick break.
And when we come back, we're going to talk more about ways that you can make your computer go faster and keep yourself safe.
Today in the Internet Age, this is Computer Guru Show.
We'll be right back.
Your computer guru, Mike Swanson, is here to help you tame that beast of a machine.
Join the chat right now at gurushow.com or call in.
This is the Computer Guru Show on KVOI, The Voice.
Mike Swanson, your computer guru, is just a click away.
Listen and watch at gurushow.com.
This is the Computer Guru Show on KVOI, The Voice.
Welcome back to the Computer Guru Show.
My name is Mike.
Here to deal with your technology needs and treat you like a person in the process.
790-2040.
That's 520.
790-2040.
If you'd like to be part of the show, let's talk to Fernando.
Hey, Fernando, how are you doing?
Hi, I'm doing pretty good.
Thank you.
A couple of things.
I have a, we have wireless modem, you know, in our office.
My computer seems the only one that sometimes will turn it on and no connection, internet connection.
Everybody else is fine except me.
And so what we have to do is we have to turn off the modem, let it sit for a while, and then turn it back on, and then I'm connected again.
What can I do to kind of resolve that issue?
And the other question that I had, I caught the end part of the viruses and how you guys can go ahead and guarantee that, I guess,
that that would prevent viruses from getting into your computer.
Yeah, and it's not actually an install.
Well, I mean, it's sort of an install, but it's mostly a we prevent installation.
Okay.
So as far as the virus stuff is concerned, we put some settings on the computer that disallowed.
It allows execution of any program outside of where we tell it it's okay.
Okay.
So there is some discomfort if you're one of those users that likes to install lots of software.
However, if you're one of those users where you like the way your computer is right now and you're okay with it not changing,
then that's an excellent way for you to make sure that you don't get any type of infection.
Okay, and that's me right there.
I don't install anything like that on my computer anyway.
Good.
You're exactly the person I need to talk to you for that then.
Okay, and where are you guys located then?
We're at 510 East Fort Lowell.
Okay, 510 East Fort Lowell.
That's first in Fort Lowell.
So tell me more about your computer though as far as the Wi-Fi stuff is concerned.
And it's happened with several of the computers that I've had,
but what happens is that I turn it off every evening.
I didn't used to do that.
I would leave it on turning off the computer.
And so sometimes...
Sometimes when we turn it back on, what happens is that it'll say that it's not connected into the website.
There's no internet connection.
So you go over there and shut the modem off and turn everything off basically a couple of minutes and there it is.
And you're saying that while yours is unable to connect, other computers are?
Are, yes.
Okay, and what kind of antivirus do you have on your computer right now?
Norton.
Yeah.
Yeah, baby.
That was happening before anyway.
Yeah, well, still that's not helping your problem at all.
Okay.
So I would say first thing I would do is, especially if it's the Norton internet security,
because that's got to go.
Oh, okay.
All right, we like antivirus, it's just antivirus.
We don't like antivirus that does anything else as far as...
We don't like it being a firewall, not a big fan of it basically trying to dominate your online presence.
Just be antivirus and be good antivirus.
That's really the criteria.
Uh-huh.
Is McAfee a good one?
Nope.
No, it's not.
McAfee and Norton both are basically kill it with fire, right?
Okay.
We don't like either of those.
Okay.
McAfee's problem is that they have just miserable detection, right?
Okay.
They are a decent antivirus when they are being just antivirus, but they're slow as far as being able to...
to catch infections while they're still relevant.
Right.
Now...
Well, that's what I didn't understand, because if I had these, you know, why were they not working, you know?
So, God, you answered my question there.
Now, Norton is very good at basically first-line defense, right?
They catch those infections quick.
So, as soon as something's out in the wild within 48 to 72 hours,
they generally have something out there for it that's been pushed out to all of their clients.
Uh-huh.
However, the Norton products tend to be overly ambitious,
and they like to basically just rule the computer.
Okay.
And a lot of times, they are tweaking with settings that Windows is trying to tweak back.
So, you end up with a lot of conflict, and many times, you'll end up with no Internet access.
And that's my big problem with Norton is that it makes your computer really slow.
Okay.
On top of which, a lot of times, you'll end up with just...
No Internet access for no reason at all.
Right.
And then you have to unplug the wire or reset the cable modem or the router or something to get back online.
So, I'm going to suggest that at least a contributing factor to what's going on with your not being able to connect
is some sort of configuration problem with Norton.
Okay.
So, start with getting rid of that and putting something else on there.
I would imagine that that goes... that you'll have that problem less frequently.
Now, how old is this machine?
Okay.
So, it's a Windows 8 machine?
Yes, it is.
And I don't really particularly like it, probably because I don't really understand a lot of the stuff.
All right.
So, here's what I'm going to tell you to do.
You either sign up for the lockdown service or the GPS, one of the two,
or you are going to uninstall Norton utterly.
You will, I would say, download something called the Norton Removal Tool.
Uh-huh.
So, after you've uninstalled Norton using the regular uninstall,
you run this Norton Removal Tool.
And it eradicates Norton products from your computer.
Okay.
And all of the settings.
So, put your computer back to default.
Then you are going to get the paid version of Malwarebytes.
You can start off with a free trial if you want.
But the paid version is what is required.
Everybody listening to the show should have the paid version of Malwarebytes on their computer,
unless they're Macs.
Uh-huh.
And that way, you are much more likely to keep yourself out of trouble.
Okay.
So, I would suggest...
And what's it called again?
The Norton Removal Tool?
The Norton Removal Tool.
Malwarebytes.
B-Y-T-E-S.
Okay.
All right.
So, you can go to Malwarebytes.org and you can get a copy there.
Okay.
Please do not Google search for Malwarebytes and then download the first thing you find.
You can also go to my website.
Go to gurushow.com.
And there's a useful links section with links to the Malwarebytes website.
Oh, okay.
Cool.
So, that will probably help quite a bit.
Now, the only other thing that I have to ask is how old is this router?
It's probably...
A couple of years old.
All right.
If it's more than four or five years old, then one of the reasons that your other people
may be able to connect and you can't is that they might have older machines and it's operating
on an older standard.
Okay.
So, the only other thing to look at there is you might need a newer router.
Now, the flip side to that is if you get one of the fancy, brand new, stupid, expensive
ones, your older machines might not be able to connect all that well.
So, you want to find something that's sort of in the middle.
The ones that we like, if you're looking locally, is there's these white Asus, the RT-16s.
They tend to be very nice routers that work with just about every computer that we've
put them in front of, and they have very nice reliability.
Okay.
Well, thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
I'm probably going to be swinging by your place anyway, but yeah, thank you so much
for having me.
Thanks for the help.
I appreciate that.
It's what I do, man.
Thank you for the call.
I appreciate it.
All right.
Thank you.
Bye.
Thank you.
So, yeah, if you have infections, and most everybody does, I mean, that's one of the
reasons that you'll notice that we occasionally will say, hey, guess what, we're doing basically
free tune-ups on machines is because every machine that comes in, nearly all of them,
I would say greater than 80%.
Yeah.
Really?
Yeah.
Because most of them don't have infections on them, and a lot of them are sort of innocuous.
They're the ones that are just like advertising infections or things that aren't terrible.
All right.
They're not necessarily stealing your data or encrypting your stuff.
But it's just so prevalent, and people just get used to it.
They're like, yeah, all that advertising, all the extra spam or the email worm that
I have on my computer, I just got used to it, so no need to fix it.
Come on now.
Drives me crazy.
Just fix it.
it right and and then listen because anytime that you bring your computer into computer guru if you
bring your computer in when you pick it up we're going to be like okay this is what you need to do
to not have this happen again and a lot of times this is free advice right it's like you should
install this piece of software you should take these cautionary steps you know to to make sure
that you don't get this infection again you should have a backup you should have all of these
different things and we're going to tell you this is what you need to do but if you don't listen
you're going to get an infection again right and you just you don't have to it doesn't have to be
that way your computer doesn't have to be slow you don't have to be afraid of using your computer
online you don't have to worry about your data getting stolen or your your your passwords being
stolen you don't have to worry about any of that stuff it just takes a bit of planning right and
and a little bit of advice all right let's go and talk to charles
you
hey charles how are you today i'm doing well thank you thank you well my problem's kind of
weird i've got a new windows 8 one machine here in asus my wife likes to use thunderbird as her
mail client okay since we installed it on this machine it just doesn't play it continually goes
into not responding mode and we have to shut it down and can't delete stuff in the in the from
the inbox as easily and i'm just wondering is is that something you've heard that's out there
that'll work anytime you use any of the mozilla products i've
i die a little bit inside so um who's your mail provider well we have three mail a yahoo and
another one does it tend to happen where she's able to delete from one of the accounts but not
the other no it's so it's all of them yeah it's the program it's and i don't know how all right
tell me a little bit more about the computer uh so typical questions how old is it about two months
oh it's a brand new one okay and uh antivirus that's installed i took
to spend uh took off panda the other day where someone said that could be a an issue for it so i
took it off the song would go away it did not did not write anything else on their now the free
version malwarebytes okay is it in trial mode or no i yeah but for the first month it's going to
run in trial mode oh so i'm curious is it still in trial mode and sometimes so i i can probably not
okay probably not all right and so since day one when you put that on there it's been that way
pretty much yes okay uh the mail
I can't see if you have the Yahoo and Gmail ones.
Are they POP or IMAP?
Okay, good.
POP should be the faster one.
All right, so IMAP is nicer.
We generally tell people to set your accounts up as IMAP
so that there's some type of server-side synchronization.
Okay.
But, okay, good.
But the Yahoo's a POP.
Yahoo's a POP.
All right.
Basically, just, you know, without knowing anything more about the machine
or its configuration, and you're saying that it's been that way since day one,
I would suggest that it's probably going to be a Thunderbird problem
rather than, like, a communication issue
or some other type of infection that's going on.
Because we have to look at those things first.
Whenever we hear, well, my mail client locks up all the time,
the first thing that jumps to mind to me is there might be an email worm, right,
where it's hijacking the mail program in the background
and saying, hey, send out 10,000 emails.
However, you know, if you have Malwarebytes on there
and you had Panda on there, that's pretty unlikely,
especially on a Windows 8 machine.
Can you recommend some kind?
Well, I'm a big fan of Outlook myself.
But the built-in mail client for 8,
even though it's got kind of a weird interface,
is also an aggregating mail client.
So you can have multiple accounts in there.
Really, if you're looking for a decent email client,
all the free ones are kind of terrible.
So there's something called EM client,
which is if you're anti-Microsoft, is okay.
It's kind of an Outlook clone.
But really, I like Outlook.
It's just, if you have Office, then, you know,
chances are you've got like a 365 subscription and you have Outlook.
Just use it.
It's a decent mail program.
Information.
I'll check into that EM one there and maybe even try the built-in one.
You know, I'm going to suggest one other thing.
You have Thunderbird installed,
which means that you probably have Firefox installed.
I would say uninstall Firefox and see if it gets better.
Firefox has this weird...
And this is the reason I hate Firefox,
is that on some machines, for no apparent reason whatsoever,
it just makes the machine slow for certain functions, right?
A lot of times, it's when you're typing.
And I have no idea why it would be that way.
But we find all the time that people have Thunderbird installed
and they're like, my computer's so slow,
it can't even keep up with me typing.
And not even in Firefox, right?
Firefox isn't even running.
It's just installed on the computer, right?
And they're typing in Word,
or in their email program,
and it's just dragging along.
It's like not responding.
Or they'll type, and then the words will catch up to them.
It's Firefox.
And all you do is uninstall Firefox,
and the machine goes back to normal, right?
Instant typing again.
So we don't know why it does that with Firefox.
I honestly have not been invested enough to care.
So it's just been like uninstall Firefox and problem solved.
So I would say...
Go with Chrome.
What's that?
Go with Chrome.
Yeah.
I like Chrome.
Chrome's a good browser.
I can dig it.
So I would say go with that and see what happens.
All right.
Thank you.
No problem.
Have yourself a lovely, lovely day.
You too.
All right.
So we're going to take a quick break,
and then we are going to come back to more phone calls
and more helping you with free tech support
right here on the Computer Guru Show, 790-2040.
We'll be right back.
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