Last night I accidentally stepped in some digital dog-doo while looking for an obscure video clip on the net. The video wasn't of a "graphic" nature, (it was a funny AMV), but I forgot its name. The only thing I remembered about it was the song they used form Peaches... the title of the song WAS graphic, and thus was the basis for my search. Dear God in heaven, what a colossal mistake that was.
The swarm of viruses I got off one insidious site in particular darn near crashed my computer then and there. One of the bugs even deactivated my anti-virus!!! I didn't even know they could do that! The rest of the viruses, worms, trojans, and bugs of all description tried to do all sorts of crap from changing my homepage, to trying to get me to pay for some bogus "new anti-malware" program, to flooding my machine with all sorts of popups, and such. It was a friggin' nightmare!
My first plan of attack was to hit it with my Norton anti-virus software. That ran for an hour and told me nothing was wrong with my system. After that I tried the AdAware program I had on tap. That got out 25 of them, but did nothing to stop the problems to any noticeable extent. Then I did a search of all the stuff my machine downloaded that day planning on deleting them all by hand.... only to find out my computer wouldn't let me kill any program that was actively running, which was all of them I wanted to get rid of. I'm pretty far from being fully computer-literate - couldn't tell you the difference between DOS and C++ if my life depended on it, much less what all belonged in the System 32 file, so there was no overriding the stubborn will of the computer. I was rapidly nearing the old Elvis solution... putting a bullet through the screen.
And then as I tried my Norton again in vain, I noticed one of the files it was scanning was Spybot Search & Destroy. Mind you it was a very old file... maybe 8 or so years old from the last nasty bug I got. But I also recalled it requiring the user to know one obscure file name from the next, which I am not so great at doing. Even so, I was at the end of my rope and had nothing to lose. After digging it up and clicking the icon, it asked me if I wanted to up-date the program. Figuring something newer was probably available I went online (took five minutes and a lot of praying to do even that) found this site, and downloaded a fresh copy of S&D.
*Click* Problem gone, just like that! Found and took out 95 bugs in about 10 minutes, and then asked for a restart of the system so it could kill three more.
When everything else failed, including my pay-service from Symantec, Spybot not only did what they couldn't, but made it look easy in the process. And best yet, the new version didn't even require me to know jack about what programs were ok to keep or delete. It just did it... no fuss, no muss, no B.S.
You Guys Rock!!!:bow::2thumb::bigthumb: Now and forever, Spybot S&D is on my desktop!
Being a cheap bastard I rarely pay for free things, but in your case I donated $10 and bought the Spybot t-shirt, (I assume you get a piece of that form Jinx).
So from the bottom of my very grateful heart, let me say THANK YOU!
The swarm of viruses I got off one insidious site in particular darn near crashed my computer then and there. One of the bugs even deactivated my anti-virus!!! I didn't even know they could do that! The rest of the viruses, worms, trojans, and bugs of all description tried to do all sorts of crap from changing my homepage, to trying to get me to pay for some bogus "new anti-malware" program, to flooding my machine with all sorts of popups, and such. It was a friggin' nightmare!
My first plan of attack was to hit it with my Norton anti-virus software. That ran for an hour and told me nothing was wrong with my system. After that I tried the AdAware program I had on tap. That got out 25 of them, but did nothing to stop the problems to any noticeable extent. Then I did a search of all the stuff my machine downloaded that day planning on deleting them all by hand.... only to find out my computer wouldn't let me kill any program that was actively running, which was all of them I wanted to get rid of. I'm pretty far from being fully computer-literate - couldn't tell you the difference between DOS and C++ if my life depended on it, much less what all belonged in the System 32 file, so there was no overriding the stubborn will of the computer. I was rapidly nearing the old Elvis solution... putting a bullet through the screen.
And then as I tried my Norton again in vain, I noticed one of the files it was scanning was Spybot Search & Destroy. Mind you it was a very old file... maybe 8 or so years old from the last nasty bug I got. But I also recalled it requiring the user to know one obscure file name from the next, which I am not so great at doing. Even so, I was at the end of my rope and had nothing to lose. After digging it up and clicking the icon, it asked me if I wanted to up-date the program. Figuring something newer was probably available I went online (took five minutes and a lot of praying to do even that) found this site, and downloaded a fresh copy of S&D.
*Click* Problem gone, just like that! Found and took out 95 bugs in about 10 minutes, and then asked for a restart of the system so it could kill three more.
When everything else failed, including my pay-service from Symantec, Spybot not only did what they couldn't, but made it look easy in the process. And best yet, the new version didn't even require me to know jack about what programs were ok to keep or delete. It just did it... no fuss, no muss, no B.S.
You Guys Rock!!!:bow::2thumb::bigthumb: Now and forever, Spybot S&D is on my desktop!
Being a cheap bastard I rarely pay for free things, but in your case I donated $10 and bought the Spybot t-shirt, (I assume you get a piece of that form Jinx).
So from the bottom of my very grateful heart, let me say THANK YOU!
