Let me start from the beginning... my computer was running slower than slow yesterday, and my husband recommended downloaded Ad-Aware and running a scan... he then said to go to their help forums (bulletin board, like here) and they will walk you through what to do next. I did that, and at the time had quite a few items in quarantine. One of the guys said I could easily delete everything, no problem. So I did, and then another guy, apparently a moderator, said that I shouldn't have listened to his advice, because he's a newbie (der, I should have looked, he had 14 posts and this moderator guy had like 6000!). Anyway, my pc is running fine right now, so hopefully whatever I deleted yesterday wasn't a necessary thing. (I tried to go to my quaratine log and recycle bin to restore, but nothing was in either one). Maybe the files are hidden somewhere? Luckily (or not) I didn't do a shut down last night, I logged off (I have Windows XP).
This morning when I got into work I downloaded the updates, and ran a new scan. I now have 80 or so things in quarantine, but I don't know whether I should delete them (and nobody has answered my ?? in the forum over there).
My 3 questions:
1. How do I know what is safe to permanently delete, and what isn't?
2. If I install Yahoo IM on my machine, does that open me up to more unwanted files than just surfing the net? My husband thinks that all IM's are bad news.
3. How can I set my cookie/security/privacy settings in Tools/Internet Options, so that I can still visit sites without much hassle (for instance, hotmail, a MSN group, Yahoo email etc).
Thanks in advance for any help/insight anyone can give me... I'm worthless when it comes to this stuff!!!
~Tara
ps - my hubby said I should just talk to the IT people, but I want to wait and see if I can do this myself...
This morning when I got into work I downloaded the updates, and ran a new scan. I now have 80 or so things in quarantine, but I don't know whether I should delete them (and nobody has answered my ?? in the forum over there).
My 3 questions:
1. How do I know what is safe to permanently delete, and what isn't?
2. If I install Yahoo IM on my machine, does that open me up to more unwanted files than just surfing the net? My husband thinks that all IM's are bad news.
3. How can I set my cookie/security/privacy settings in Tools/Internet Options, so that I can still visit sites without much hassle (for instance, hotmail, a MSN group, Yahoo email etc).
Thanks in advance for any help/insight anyone can give me... I'm worthless when it comes to this stuff!!!
~Tara
ps - my hubby said I should just talk to the IT people, but I want to wait and see if I can do this myself...