Anti Malware/Spyware

[Pollushon]

A decent backup app like Acronis can be had for $50. A good backup regime is invaluable and then some. Many apps do (driver) universal restores so hardware failures aren't an issue.

I run daily backups of all my machines to a NAS which then gets backed up (block based) to another NAS, disk is cheap so I have a lot. Weekly would suffice for most. If anything untoward occurs such as described by the OP then it's a simple matter of restoring to a date when the device was happier. Anything mission critical is also synced to an online service through a Truecrypt pipe as a CIFS share on my LAN so it's as safe and easy as could be.

Short story OP, you can easily prevent this from ever being a concern again

 

[Trennaa]

Haha I will be doing a full format soon.. I've been quite negligent regarding PC security, however I run spybot once or twice a week.

I ran Malware Bytes, ADWcleaner and another software last night, reset IE/Chrome to default settings, uninsatlled any unknown software from the laptop. Restarted a couple of times, and the crap was gone, speed of the laptop was a bit quicker too.

I will be backing up all files necessary over the next couple/few days and doing a proper format and re-start. Will be like new again - hopefully!