Can you get a computer virus by simply opening a web page?

[Shy Guy]

Yesterday, I was searching something for school on google. I clicked on one of the links and quickly exited out because it was lame. 10 minutes later a pop came up saying my computer way infected.My anti virus had ditected 10 virus and trojans. Was it that web site I visited that gave me the virus?

[noir3]

yes a site can give you virii but also some sites are not subtle about it, I think that was a fake page telling you that you had tons of virii in order to get you to download some bogus anti-virus protection that is actually adware itself, I recc. you get noscript on your home computer if you are still worried about it

[waseem]

I think yes, that's why anti virus company produce two kinds of anti virus 1. anti virus only 2. internet security

[Nerds]

Its likely, but more probable that you have received the virus from another website that you visited in the past. You can get a virus from a variety of different kinds of websites. All the more reason to make sure that your anti-virus protection is up to date.

[toby]

Yes. While I'm surprised to hear that this happened with Google search results (they are pretty good about removing malicious search data), this can definitely happen. As a network administrator, I've had to block access to Craigslist. My customers were going there, and then there'd be a link in various ads like, "click here to see a picture of what I'm selling." And my customers would click there, and BOOM! Virus city. The same thing happens a lot on Facebook and stuff. CERTAINLY you never want to click tinyurl or bit.ly links because you've no way of telling where you'll wind up. Maybe somewhere good. Maybe somewhere bad.

[David N]

Yes, but the popup IS a virus/trojan. You need malwarebytes and run it, Then get a real antivirus like AVG or Avast (both free) and clean up what remains.

http://www.malwarebytes.org it's free for home use.

[The Brit]

Yes you can.

Install AVG then on whatever search engine you use, next to every displayed result should be a Green Star with a tick in it, this shows if the webpage is safe or not.

Move your mouse over the Green Star to view the details such as when the website was last scanned. If you do somehow click on an unsafe site, then AVG will give you a message warning you, and you will be able to leave it before actually connecting to it.

Also because AVG is a trustsed and well known anti-virus, the results will be reliable.