Monday, October 29, 2012

Stick it to Viruses! FixMeStick Review and Giveaway

Me and my new ammo against Viruses and Malware!
Hey there.  I was recently contacted by our good friends at FixMeStick and was offered an opportunity to try out their latest product:  The FixMeStick.  Let me paint a picture for you.  You're off, browsing the web like we all do, purchased some music, viewed some funny videos, and then... your computer crashes.  Oh man...  You get it load up but you notice it's a little sluggish.  Then there are a few pop ups that don't seem to want to go away.  Worst case scenario, the computer won't even boot up anymore because of the viruses and malware that have infected your computer.  Before you even get a chance to assess the damage, the virus or malware have taken over your computer.  You now consider it "useless" and need to get your tech friend to clean out your computer and hope to have it working soon.  Now, how many times have THAT happened to you?  I can tell you right now that I have cleaned out my fair share of computers and laptops and it can be a tedious task since computer threats have been getting smarter and more difficult to find and eliminate.  The FixMeStick makes this tedious task of virus removal extremely easy!
Conventional methods of cleaning out a computer usually requires you to run an antivirus or antimalware program on your computer or laptop.  The problem with this method is that because your operation system is running, you have already given the threat a chance to hide.  After you run your scan, you still have to go through your processes, start up programs, and files looking for something out of the ordinary to make sure you can get rid of it.  Another pain in the butt that you may encounter is that the admin rights have been revoked, making it extremely difficult to make changes to your computer.  When that happens, it's almost as if you don't have access to the computer when you are not allowed to run programs!  It severely handicaps you in your battle against malware and viruses.  The more technically inclined may be able to get around this but trying to run a program off a CD or USB flash drive.  The problem there is that this method does not guarantee a legitamite scan of your computer.  The FixMeStick offers easy solutions to both of these scenarios and it can be done in 3 easy steps:
  1. Insert the FixMeStick into a USB port
  2. Run the program
  3. Sit back and let the magic happen
It really is that simple.  Now, if by chance you cannot run the FixMeStick program because the malicious software has disabled your admin privileges or you just can't get to your desktop, you are still 3 steps away from winning the battle!  You can boot directly from the FixMeStick!  Here's how:
  1. Insert the FixMeStick into a USB port
  2. If prompted, boot from FixMeStick
  3. Sit back and let the magic happen
So how does the FixMeStick work?  It's quite genius, actually.  When you run the FixMeStick program, you are running it off of a basic Linux/Ubuntu based operating system.  Because your infected operating system never boots up, any threats on your computer never had the chance to start up and hide itself.  The powerful megascan (is that name taken yet?  lol) is powered by 3 of the top names in internet security, Vipre, Sophos, and Kaspersky, so you know that any malicious threats will be eliminated when found.  When the program first starts, it will ask for to connect to an internet connection.  This internet connection is for definition updates.  I strongly suggest that you update the definitions each time but it's not necessary.  You can still run FixMeStick without it.  Once the scan is finished, you'll have your computer back and fully functional!  Really, how awesome is that?!  How easy was that?!  Before the FixMeStick, I would spend an afternoon scanning, updating, searching, researching, and re-scanning trying to get all of the infections off a computer.  It could really be time consuming.  With the FixMeStick, I've never before cleaned out a computer so quickly.  It's a must have for anyone that prides themselves in computer care and maintenance!  In simple terms, the FixMeStick is THE BEST solution for eliminating malicious threats on any PC!!!  It's so easy that even a non geek can use it!  lol
I was able to remove the "Game Play Labs" virus from a computer with ease. I was also able to get rid of a few trojans, such as "Trojan.Win32.Jorik.Fraud.qva" and "Troj/FakeAV-FVC". Trojans are usually more difficult to remove than viruses an the FixMeStick handled the job with ease!

To be fair, I did run into a small snag when I first tried out the FixMeStick.  About 5 minutes into running the program, it stopped unexpectedly.  I tried restarting the FixMeStick, as suggested, but nothing.  I was a little discouraged at first and reached out to their tech support.  Within an hour or so, I received an Email from them and 10 minutes later, the FixMeStick was up and running without any additional issues.  Huge props to their tech support for solving my issue quickly.  Being a tech guy myself, it's frustrating when your new gadget doesn't work properly and it was quite a relief to know that the FixMeStick tech support jumped on my issue right away and solved it within minutes.  

Now... who wants one of these bad boys?!?!  The awesome people at FixMeStick not only provided a stick for me to review, but offered to provide one to one of you, my faithful readers!  You know what that means?!?!?  GIVEAWAY TIME!  This giveaway will run from now until Nov. 15th and will be open to everyone.  Please be aware that international winners will be asked to pay for shipping cost so please take this into consideration before entering.  Good luck!

20 comments:

  1. The first scenario should not be done in the first place as it is unlikely to result in a clean machine. Booting from a known clean environment is always a better solution.

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  2. The worst infection I have seen was a neighbors computer a couple of months ago that had over a dozen individual pieces of malware on it. Took me over 6 hours to clean it out. If he had current backups, I would have simply done a nuke and pave on the box instead.

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  3. I have before. I don't know if it's the worst virus but it has this feature that it has the original files then make a fake copy one then when you click it (the copied one) it multiplies and you have no choice other than formatting your device because it sticks to the device whether you scan and clean it.

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  4. I completely agree. The only problem with booting from a clean environment is that not everyone is tech savvy enough to be able to do it. That's why I love that the FixMeStick makes it so easy to have that separate boot disk AND an awesome scan tool that is so easy to use.

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  5. I did a few years ago. I can't remember exactly what it did, but I do remember spending half a day trying to get it to a point where I could open a program without the whole system collapsing.

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  6. I haven't had to yet and I hope I don't but having this would be great for if that time ever comes!

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  7. i did try but did not work and ended up dying on me

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  8. Hey there Patricia. Really? No way! What happened exactly? Did the computer end up dying or did the FixMeStick no longer worked?

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  9. Gotten lucky so far, but with 3 kids trolling the internet I'm bound to come up with something bad soon

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  10. With the kids heading into game portals, anything is possible.

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  11. I let my husband handle the clean up and it happens one or twice a year. It is a pain because it takes 1 or 2 days to clean up the whole thing, and reinstalled everything.

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  12. Hey there Valerie. Yeah, it's a huge pain to clean up a computer or laptop. Even bigger pain when you have to reinstall everything!

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  13. I don't remember the name of it but I couldn't do anything on my pc!
    ericacarnes(at)gmail(dot)com

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  14. My daughter picked up something that just disabled her ability to even startup the Computerworld Had to pay someone to wipe out the hard drive and start from scratch! Awful!

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  15. I once got a svchost.exe virus and it made it so I couldnt boot up in safe mode,played commercials in the backround of my computer & shit it down random times.it was a BITCH to get rid of lmao

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  16. i have had to reboot a computer, the virus wouldn't remove!


    susansmoaks at gmail dot com

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  17. Hey there Rob. I know that fristration! That svchost virus is a pain to get rid of!

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  18. Hey there Wendy. That's terrible! Having a virus take out your computer is the absolute worse. Especially when it needs to be wiped clean!

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  19. Yeah it was a pain in the @$$ lol.I was ready to just do a fresh install but I think after hours of trying to get rid of it I finally got it

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