[Skybird]

A system that got compromised, remains to be compromised, no matter what deletion, repair or clever mind stuff implemented - once compromised, forever compromised. You just cannot be certain that your repairing attempts were really successfull, you cannot rule out that something wicked survived. It's like with Carpenter's movie "The Thing".

And there is really some clever malware code out there these days. Stuff that you get infested by by said stuff landing on your HD , you must not even open or activate something anymore, or press a button. And that is email only. Drive-by-infections during normal browsing is a completely new ballgame. Your get directed by a pop up window to another website - and by that autodirection you already got infested.

Thats why I am in a sandbox, tend to use TOR or VPN on occasions, but also have Java, Javascript, scripts and stuff like that usually shut down, and have switched off all automatically functioning stuff in the browser where possible. Well, almost all such stuff. Some less candy and FX that way, yes, but its worth it.

If there is problems, or suspicion, do not trust system restore points, they already can be infested as well. Run the Klingon strategy instead: attack frontally and destroy the whole planet; delete the HD, means: re-format, switch off power, reformat again and switch off power again; copy an image from a HD that you stored physically disconnected form the system. Really clever malware even can survive formatting by harddrives and physically power interruption, just to scare you a bit. that's why it is good to cut power in a brute fashion: olull the plug, do not log off and close windows - some malware write itself to the HD again already, some code that protects the malware infested part of the HD from being formatted next time the format command is given.

Regarding computers, paranoia is a virtue.

I replace the complete HD every 18 months now.

Regarding email management, in the past I used to change email addresses constantly,m every couple of moths, every time I started to receive spam. I used the same name, just added "01", "02", "03" to it, to all names I used for different email addresses. That made it easier to keep track of it. I also had several email addresses, some for trusted people, some for one-way interactions, some for a forum entry, and so on.

100% safety is impossible these days, none of the methods above give you that, nor do live scanners, firewalls and such. You can just reduce the probability of getting hit. When you step into dog sh!t, then you have stepped into dog sh!t. Overkill the system then. Most infestations get spread by private systems whose owners have no clue that their systems are infested. That's why I am extremely angry at people who sometimes boast on some forums that they do not care for security and do not use any protective measure at all, saying their surfing habits and guts feeling is their guidance. They are either extremely antisocial, or they do not know what they are talking of .