I spy...

A little dialogue box pops up and you see your entire C drive being deleted away. A moment later another box pops up and recommends a particular malware removal program to resolve the problem. Clicking ok you are transported to the download page of that program. Convenient? Absolutely . Coincidental? again, yes - a little too much of it.

Of late I have been bombarded by these pesky boxes. I can be typing a blog entry and out comes this announcement that proclaims I have a virus infection. And this happens at intervals of 2 minutes. It isn't until you click on the OK button( and transported to the download page ) that the pop-up stops popping up - for about 5 minutes ,after which the cycle starts all over again.

All that is well and good but it is not just one product. At one time I must have clicked on at least five different individual products.

The irony is , this is done in the name of companies which claim they can put an end to all these.

Obviously I didn't pay them to end what they started.

So started my quest for anti-malware programs. The thing about searching for these programs is this ; I search for a program that praticularly irritates the hell out of me and out comes this free trial version of a program that I think is going to be my saviour. Happily, I download and let it give my computer a scan. Without fail the program detects 200 over malware programs. When I click the remove button all it does is prompt me to buy the product.

For me, it's worse than the spyware program. Particularly when you already are broke and spent 1 hour scanning your computer , thinking you have finally outsmarted it.

I must have downloaded at least ten different programs, of each only four have passed the test. Those four have ended my woes of clicking, having weird websites pop up and given my computer a new lease of life.

In no order of perference, they are:

1) Ad-aware
2) Spybot
3) Counter-spy
4)AVG free

All free of course. Why so many you ask? Well, that's because different programs detect different kinds of spyware. But together they work beautifully.

Chances are, when you chat with me online, I am scanning my computer for spyware. Meanwhile, if you are like me afflicted with the same problems, give them a try. They worked for me.