Another Day, Another Trial

Love my PC! Love the Internet! So why can't the two of them, in the immortal words of ‘90s-beating-victim-turned-folk-philosopher Rodney King, “just get along?”

Yesterday, after stupidly opening an email from a questionable source, I got infected with a Trojan virus. (How ironic – all this time I thought Trojans were a form of virus protection.) All the bells and whistles suddenly went off – pop-ups starting popping up all over the place: ‘You’ve been infected! Your emails, passwords and credit card info are at risk. Click here for a list of anti-malware software programs.’

Huh? "Anti-malware?" What happened to "Virus Protection" or "Security" programs? (A Republican must have named this new category of software protection programs – they are good at naming things to scare the masses.)

I know better than to open mysterious emails, so what was I thinking? I was not thinking – quite apparently! That little lapse in judgment (and, apparently, a crappy virus protection program) set me back $29.99, PLUS my browser is now permanently set to ____. (Initially I was going to put a web address here, but I decided that I didn't want to give this site the satisfaction of promoting their webpage on my blog. They know who they are, and they’ll have to just be satisfied with irritating me and not my readers.) Yes, I’ve been to Tools / Internet Options / Home Page Address and it is set to MSN.com, so I don’t know why this other page comes up whenever the browser is opened. Just a continuing reminder of my momentary lapse in judgment, I guess. If you know how to eliminate this unwanted home page, please let me know!

There will be a special place in Hell for all of those computer hackers that write destructive, invasive and/or annoying computer programs and pop-ups. You’ve been warned!