Korean Job Discussion Forums

[PaperTiger]

My system ran fine until my wife started using it (hers is too slow now), she's using for some gaming, blogging, and internet shopping. I keep hearing people harp on how bad Korean internet is about dropping crap into your hard drive, and now that my system is running %50 slower it seems like a reasoanable explanation.

Prior to my wife's use, I could run Limewire and Bitcomet with no problem...now Limewire just creeps along...even typing in a search entry is slower.

My system is in Korean not English. What should I check for? What should I download to fix these problems? My wife was using something called PC Ziggy on my system, but it didn't seem to have any effect (it was still getting slower). What should I be running for firewall protection, virus, and malware? Are there free downloads or downloads via torrent site?

PS-Some of the programs I checked out came widely recommended, but they are in rar format, which I don't know how to open. Do I need software to unzip or reformat these programs?

[Thunndarr]

I've got a superstitious dread of all Korean programs. I've got none on my home computer, but co-workers keep installing crap on the computers I use at work. My classroom computer now takes roughly 30-40 seconds to play video files, after someone installed some craptastic anti-virus program on there, and god knows what other stuff has been loaded while I'm away.

Anyway, get Spybot and also Ad-Aware. Those will clean up a lot of unwanted programs. I'm sure others will chime in soon with other helpful tips.

[Demophobe]

This thread contains many things worth checking out.

[StAxX SOuL]

If you want to keep your computer free of issues then...

Spywareblaster - immunises your system against things that could potentially be installed without your knowing..

Spybot S&D - removal tool, and also immunises against a bunch of other malwares...

Adaware - Great at detecting and removing adware from your system...

HijackThis - Ultimate in adware and virus removal but you need to know computers because it deals directly with your registry to remove every last trace of it... if you delete the wrong thing, then you're in trouble...

Norton Antivirus - Stops any worms from getting into your system, autoprotect stops any potentially harmful programs running on your system

Sygate Firewall Pro - ZoneAlarm is the most widely known but its the AOL of internet firewalls... Sygate is much less hassle to use, and I've used it for a good 3 years as well as install it on any PCs I've built...

[wormholes101]

my co worker is incorrigable when it comes to internet safety. her computer was riddled with spyware/adware until we got it reformatted and she has managed to get it reinfected again despite my exhortation regarding willy nilly downloading from popups.

I ran spybot and adware se on her computer but it didn't pick up everything.. i think these programs are somewhat specific to geography.

[eamo]

[Demophobe]

Data miners and adware. Korean computing is full of this. The companies want to know one's surf habits and want to display their ads in all applications."Spamware", "Buyware"...we call it "Adware", but it seems that we care more about our computer than they do....generally.

Actually, I have never used a Koreans computer that doesn't have 2 or 3 programs running that would never get onto my system. There aren't many Korean anti spyware, adware programs out there either. It stands to reason, as they would have to install some adware to support their software. Heaven knows, Koreans rarely pay for software, so the companies have to get their funding somewhere else.

I don't think "Virus" is the way to describe the typical Korean computer. They are bogged down with crap running in the background and it seems that every program comes piggybacked with some kind of consumer-oriented buyware. It falls below the radar here; people just don't seem to care that the system tray has 20 icons, 5 of which are just spamware.

A Virus may kill the computer and thus take it out of the market for possible shopping. Koreans do a lot of online transactions - much moreso than in the west. Shopping, banking...they do a lot more of this online than in the west. The last thing they want is for people to lose their ability to shop. There may be a lot of kiddie hacking; backdoors into computers via chat programs, the aforementioned software leaving exploits open, IE, etc... ,but nothing really big. Nobody here hacks the government computers - they seem content to shutdown a home computer remotely after an online argument, or make silly scripts to spam message/chat boards.