How to Remove a Trojan Virus

Okay, so you have downloaded some malware and now you have the horrible Trojan virus on your system scaring the hell out of you. Your credit card numbers, passwords and everything might be at risk. You are now frantically looking up information on how to remove a Trojan virus. Well then, you can breathe a sigh of relief. On the other hand, you might not even know what is a Trojan virus and must have never heard of it. Some friend of yours must have finally cracked the problem and found it out for you and must have told you to remove it. In both cases, this article will surely be of help. We shall first tell you what exactly is a Trojan Horse virus, and then explain its removal for different systems.

What is a Trojan Horse Virus Exactly?

A Trojan Horse virus is nothing but one of the computer viruses that can really be harmful for you. This virus is a form of malware and it disguises itself behind useful data or applications you might want to download. For example, you might want to download some toolbar from a free downloading website and by mistake, without even knowing about it, you might download this virus. This virus can also act as one of the e-mail viruses and spread through your system through e-mails. According to Cisco Systems, "It is a harmful piece of software that looks legitimate. Users are typically tricked into loading and executing it on their systems." Depending upon the type of this virus (Yes, there are types), your system or your computer might be open to different types of risks from losing personal information to killing of antivirus software and firewall applications. Let us now read on removing Trojan horse virus and the methods.

If You're Using Windows XP

After logging onto your system as Administrator, follow these steps and know how to remove a Trojan virus manually:

Right Click on My Computer → Properties → System Restore → Turn off System Restore → Shut Down System → Turn off Power.

Start your machine again and when the computer is booting,

Press F8 → Windows Advanced Options → Safe Mode → Enter.

Now, your machine is running in the Safe Mode. In this mode itself, run your anti spy-ware and anti ad-ware programs.

After these programs are done running, shut down your computer and start it again. Run the spy-ware and ad-ware programs once again.

After all this, turn on the System Restore by → Right Click on My Computer → Properties → System Restore → Turn on System Restore.

If You're Using Mac

1. Reboot the computer affected by the Trojan Horse virus. If you want to do this, you need to hold the 'Shift' key when the computer is restarting
2. Launch/Start an antivirus program like McAfee or Symantec's Norton. This program needs to be installed on your computer from before.
3. After the window of any of these programs appears, click on 'Disk View'.
4. After you have the disk view in front of you, click on 'Scan or Repair'. Once you do this, the antivirus can easily detect the Trojan Horse virus and kill/trash it.
5. After this you can exit the antivirus and start your computer again. Once it has started, empty the Trash completely and immediately.

Now that you know how to remove a Trojan virus from your system, you can also tell about this to your friends and help them do the same. As we have seen, removing a Trojan virus for free isn't that difficult if you know what to do and how to do it. You now know both, how to get rid of Trojan horse virus on Windows XP and on MAC, so you don't have to worry any more.