Spyware

I did it. I ran an app that I shouldn't have and it infected my PC. It was a nasty piece of malware too. It loaded everything under the sun on my computer. I had a browser hijack, pop-up ads, dialers, a trojan, some kind of trackware, and more - you name it. I ended up running Adaware, Spybot S&D, MS Antispyware, Trend Micro's web scanner, Norton, CW Shredder, hijackthis, and AVG. I'll probably end up reinstalling XP though, because I STILL HAVE SPYWARE! I get blue screens of death at random times, ads still keep popping up in IE, ads pop up in a new tab in Firefox and resize my window (very annoying), and more weird little glitches that I didn't have a couple days ago.

My hatred for spyware probably isn't much different than anyone else out there. But, this is the first time I've really been hit bad on this end of the spectrum. Usually, I am the one fixing other people's PCs. I am the one telling people how to avoid spyware.

There was one little program that I needed to use to format my USB thumb drive to make it bootable and the app cost money. I knew I would probably only be running the program once in my entire lifetime and at the time $19.99 sounded like too much to pay. So, I found a trial version hack that would allow me to do what I needed to do. Oh how I wish I had just paid the 20 bucks!! Let this just serve as a warning to others - hacks, cracks, warez, etc. is a bad idea to get into. I know this, I tell people this, but I got trapped. No matter what your ethical stance on the topic of piracy is, it will cost you time. It won't take long until you hit that piece of software that installs every piece of spyware known to man.

It makes me feel stupid. One little app ran and BOOM, my computer is shot. It's slowly bleeding now and won't be fixed until I reinstall. At least Zach showed me nlite - a nifty little app that allows you to create your own XP install disk. You can add in all the updates and patches, make the install unattended (pop the cd in, reboot, walk away, come back to XP installed), and more. Very cool.

Over a dozen pop-ups have popped up since I started writhing this post. I'll take any suggestions for other software I could run to try and fix my system...

If only I was running a mac...none of this would happen. Maybe someday there will be spyware problems on the mac, but there isn't right now. That is just one more reason to make me drool over a mac.