Hi, I am a new member (about 30 minutes!), and have read this thread because last week I got a Trojan virus, and was advised to uninstal Limewire, which I've used for many years without any major problems. I admit I'm not very computer literate, and don't understand some of the terms used here, but I'm willing to try. I found the advise you've given very helpful, especially from Sphinx, who stated clearly what to avoid. My problem is I'm really missing Limewire, but if I re instal it will I risk infecting my computer with the virus again, I've ran a security scan every day this week, and per Norton 360 don't have the virus. A big problem for me is I'm living in Central Europe at the minute and trying to get help from someone who knows about computers and speaks English is very difficult Sorry if this sounds elementary to you all. Thanks

Hi Neelie amd Welcome to the Forums.

Limewire itself is Safe. Has NO Viruses, Adware or anything else. The issues you're experiancing is coming from the Gnutella Network. P2P means that you are downloading and sharing from other peoples computers, so the Nasties are from other Peers, Not LW.

There is Volumes of info here on these forums that will help you understand what to look out for and avoid becoming infected. However using a P2P program will always be somewhat risky. Make sure you have a good Antivirus program and ALLWAYS Scan EVERY File Before Opening.
Hope this Helps.

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I Don't Suffer From Insanity, I Enjoy Every Minute of it

Thank you very much, I think that's where I made my mistake, by not scanning every file first, I think Limewire is a great site, I only check it out for music and I'm really missing it at the moment. Thanks again

You're very welcome.

Please take a look at the three links in Birdy's post above (#48). These links have some very good info and also some Free online Malware Scanners that are essential in my opinion.

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I Don't Suffer From Insanity, I Enjoy Every Minute of it

I'm really grateful for your help. I have Norton 360 security on my computer, for which I paid nearly Euro 83 last November, sadly they wouldn't offer me any support re a potential virus unless I paid anothe Euro 99.99! Not to worry I think I've solved it with the help of another programme. Now I need to ask the following:_ I plan to re instal Limewire asap, and I know from past it will also instal my music that I already downloaded, is it possible that whatever virus I was infected with will be in my Limewire music already downloaded and I will start the problem all over again?

I'm not a windows user per se, but you do need to be aware that some music files themselves have viruses imbedded within them. So I'd suggest a very good scan of these is definitely needed with an AV with up to date virus definitions. A starting point: Virus thread: Typical virus spam file sizes - Make a note of them (click on blue link to see)

I do hope others add their suggestions here, since I am predominantly a mac OSX user, so need input from a windows user here.

Hi Neelie,

If you don't feel confident that the program that you used was able to completely clean your system, I can only suggest that you use a few of the Free Malware scanners.

http://www.superantispyware.com/

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Spybot - Search & Destroy

These are very easy to use and very good at what they do. Download them, update and run a Full scan.

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I Don't Suffer From Insanity, I Enjoy Every Minute of it

Hi neelie,
The advice given by lotr, birdy and remoc with regards to viruses and trojans is excellent -- just connecting to the internet is a risk with all the nasties out there -- as long as you have an up to date antivirus program and a firewall this should safeguard you most of the time -- (as well as the programs that remoc has posted) the problem is that some people on LW dont regard security as high priority and others just haven't a clue -- this is where the risk is -- alot of these people dont know they have viruses and trojans and just pass them on with their music.

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Limewire links: (If LW 5 will not connect) (If LW 4 will not connect)(system details) (LW Clean Reinstallation Instructions) (setting up your firewall to accept LW)

LW links are changed at times to match the current problems.

What can I do to help get rid of or limit the spread of these viruses. I just recieved one trojan horse in a ** Edit** song on Limewire and I just want to help anyway possiable to get rid of the people who make or spread these things knowingly. Also make sure I am not spreading anything unknowingly. These things are such a blithe on everyone. Anything I can do please let me know.

And just to add to what Remoc said - if you find an infected file then you can report it on Bitzi. That way, if people look up the file with Bitzi before download (a good thing to do) then they'll see that it's a crappy file & avoid it
There's info about using Bitzi in this thread: How to use Bitzi Web Lookup .. & How to use Magnet Links & Direct Connect/Browse/Chat