Is this a threat?

[souzapet]

Hi Folks,
I haven't been around these boards for a while as I've been without a computer for quite some time, however, I now have a much newer machine, running XP - I've always clung to WIN98 in the past - and I've been trying to set it up safely.

At the moment I'm running Sygate as my firewall (is this still safe?), and AVG7 Free and Spyware Blaster, with regular checks from Sybots SD and Adaware. I use Firefox as my browser and use Proxomitron 4.5 as well.

I checked my machine with the various scans and it came up clean so I typed in the address of my online bank, but to my surpise I ended up on a website called www.geenie.co.uk which only had the words "typing error - try again" upon it. It really gave me start and security alarms began going off in my head.

I closed my browser, cleared my cache and Googled the site but came up with nothing. Am I being paranoid? is this a legitimate site which is reached via a typing mistake or is it something sinister?

Ordinarily I wouldn't be so worried but it occurred as I tried to reach my bank so I'm more cautious than usual at such times. I wasn't sure whether I needed to phone my bank and let them know what had happened. Any advice or knowledge of this site would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Souzapet

[Kerodo]

As far as the software goes, Sygate should still be fine, but you might want to put on something a little stronger than AVG (Avast or AntiVir perhaps) as I have heard many people complain about AVG missing things. Don't know what's going on with the bank address, I'd try double checking the address and retyping it again (obviously) and see what happens... however, if you're at all unsure about what's going on then for sure never do any online banking on that PC till it's resolved.

[souzapet]

Thanks Kerodo.
I tried the bank site again, on a different machine and all was well.
Thanks for the tip about the AV; I think I'll try Avast. Certainly the newest version of AVG isn't quite so easy to manipulate and it's very difficult to switch off elements you have no need for e.g. the email scanner or automatic updates. I already scan every email I receive and don't open any from unknown or unexpected senders and whilst I *do* update AVG every time I go on line, I like to be in charge of everything that goes on so don't let any program do anything "automatically".
I have used AVG for many years now so hope I can soon become familiar with Avast.
Thanks for the help and advice.
Souzapet

[Kerodo]

I think you will like Avast, it is quite configurable in general, allowing you to enable or disable each "module" as desired. Updates are smooth and frequent enough, and I tend to trust it's detection more than AVG's also. Good luck with it.. :)