404 not found - I keep getting this tonight?

[Spiderman]

Updates for each and subsequent scans can take some time so bear with them but they are both well worth doing. Post here again if you need anymore help

[madcockney]

404 page not found errors can be caused by numerous reasons.

Lost connectivity to the DNS server
Your cache has incorrect data
The connection settings for your ISP are incorrect
The website is down
You have a virus or other malware on your computer

are just some.

If on a MS O/S machine such as XP then you can try from the command prompt C:\ipconfig /flushdns and see if that resolves it, though if this is the problem it tends to have affected all sites that you are trying to go to. After checking the connection settings including DNS and testing again a reboot may be required. Some of the web security apps that embed themselves into your web browser can cause a 404 error as they appear to go out to their own DNS server and if they cannot find the location virtually immediately they display the 404. Where this happens it's worth temporarily disabling the browsser web security and trying again. There is also the possibility that your ISP, or whoever they forward the DNS query to, DNS server has lost or has got a corrupted listing for the site.

Malware can play havoc with your machine. I never liked Adaware as it tended, in the old days, to lock machines up, but spybot is first class. Another similar app that I highly recommend is Malwarebyte. I have both of these applications on our servers at work and my home machines. I also run the Tea Time module of Spybot which helps to prevent changes to the registry unless you give permission.

AVG I lost faith in and they lost a 500 machine contract at work after 4 years. F-secure used to do a freebie version and there is another one that I haven't tried but supposed to be very good called Avast, also free to home users. Clamwin is a very good open source AntiVirus application which currently has not got any on access ability, but this is being worked on.

Thanks, I ran spybot - nothing at all found. I then adaware and again nothing at all found. But today the laptop is working fine and goes where I point it so I just hope its ok.

I just want to thank the help and comments that I have received here, very constructive and a great help. I would never fiddle with this kind of stuff so I had to ask and thought this the best place for me, Im pleased I posted.

[Spiderman]

Originally Posted by madcockney

... one that I haven't tried but supposed to be very good called Avast, also free to home users.

i have been using it for the last year or so, its done me right so far.

Originally Posted by SV-net

I just want to thank the help and comments that I have received here, very constructive and a great help. I would never fiddle with this kind of stuff so I had to ask and thought this the best place for me, Im pleased I posted.

You're welcome dude

[timwilky]

I would be tempted to look for a rootkit, try rootkitrevealer from microsoft/sysinternals

It won't kill anything. But could tell you if there is anything nasty hidden in the depths