Hi Jim.
I'm afraid that I can't help you with the manual removal of WinFax Pro. The instructions on the Symantec site (
here) are clear but I can understand why you don't want to do it yourself!
I used Norton Internet Security for a while. I had to re-install it once but, other than that, I had no problems. It seemed to pick up everything with very little fuss. I uninstalled it because of its high use of system resources and its reputation for being difficult to uninstall, which I believe increases as you add program updates/upgrades. I now use
NOD32, as my anti-virus and Sunbelt-Kerio Personal Firewall. They work extremely well with very little use of system resources.
Kaspersky Anti-Virus has a very good reputation. There is also Kaspersky Internet Security which includes a firewall (see
here for details). I have no personal experience of this but am impressed with the performance of their online scanner. From what I've read, I would recommend it over Norton - but it's your decision. If you go for the Anti-Virus program, rather than the Internet Security suite, you will need a separate firewall.
Sunbelt Kerio and
Zone Alarm are both good and have a free version.
Having a router with a firewall capability is good, but you do need a software one as well. You have Norton Internet Security, which includes a firewall. I suggest that you check that this is switched on in the Norton Control Panel. Only have one software firewall running. Windows XP Firewall is better than nothing, but it only protects against incoming traffic. It doesn't protect you against outgoing baddies trying to "phone home".
You need to protect your old computer, especially if it is used to go online. You need anti-virus software and a firewall. Two good anti-virus programs are
Avast and
AVG. Both are free, for personal use. Choose one of them - only have one real-time anti-virus program running. I would suggest either Sunbelt-Kerio Personal Firewall or ZoneAlarm (links given above) as a firewall.
I suggest that you run a new backup and overwrite the one on your old computer. Delete any of the known infected files that are not removed by this action. If it's an XP machine, copy ATF Cleaner onto it and run it as per the instructions in this thread. Do a full scan with your anti-virus software and let it clean anything it finds. Install AVG Anti-Spyware, set it up as per the instructions in this thread and run a full scan. Then run a Kaspersky online scan to check that you've got everything. If you have any problems, I suggest that you post a HijackThis log on this forum. If so, start a new thread - don't add it to this one.
Regarding anti-spyware software, I think that Ad-Aware is probably unnecessary as you have AVG Anti-Spyware. You already have Spybot Search & Destroy installed. Make sure that it is updated and that you use the "Immunize" feature. This protects you against a lot of the "nasties". Download and install SpywareBlaster. It is an excellent program that, again, stops a lot of malware from being installed on your computer. Neither of these programs take any system resources as they don't
run in real-time on the computer, they just load a database of blocked objects. Make sure that they are both kept updated (there is no automatic update). I suggest that you scan with AVG Anti-Spyware once a week and do a Spybot scan every fortnight. Run ATF Cleaner before running any scans.
I suggest that you look at
McAfee SiteAdvisor and
Firetrust Sitehound. These both give warnings when you are about to enter a website that is on their 'block' list. I use Sitehound, but both have a good reputation (N.B. use only one of them, not both).
I hope that this is helpful. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask.
Happy New Year!!