Monday, July 11, 2011

COMPUTER VIRUSES AND FEAR

This weekend has been interesting, confusing and just plain made me mad. My husband has picked up a computer virus on his computer.  It trys to make you think it is Microsoft Windows trying to 'protect your computer from a threat'.  It puts up screens with trick questions kinda like the old joke question ~do you beat your wife? If you answer Yes you tell every one you beat your wife and if you say No then you tell them you used to beat your wife. It asks if you want to protect your computer ~ yes or no. You are damned if you answer either way.  Well that is what this virus or worm or what ever it is.  If you answer either way you let the virus in your computer.  It has tried 3 times on mine and each time I was on a different website. I am wary of ANYTHING that pops up on my computer so I just do my trusty 'control-alt-delete' and get completely out of whatever I am in. I don't care what I lose NOTHING is as important as protecting my computer. It may not work for ever but for right now it has worked 3 times for me.  When I do my 'control alt delete' I hit log off and when it comes back on I hit shut down normally.  Right now the only thing my husband can do on his is play solitare.  He can not use the internet.  We called Dell (where we bought the computer and warranties) and then called Mcafee (Our supposed computer virus protection, that's a joke)  and both told us we would have to fork up $90 to $150 for a ONE TIME shot at having our computer fixed.  Maybe. They aren't real sure. Good luck folks, I am going to have to dump my husbands entire operating system and hope that works.  With my computer, so far so good. I have started down loading my pictures, and  word processing stuff and clip art and hope I have time to get the most important stuff off MY computer before this virus changes and if it hits you and there is no way out.  People that write this stuff should be taken out and hung.  From a high tree limb. And left there to rot and warn any other jackass with the same ideas what will happen.  I will keep you posted but be VERY VERY CAREFUL of ANYTHING THAT SAYS WIN 7 SECURITY AND TRYS TO LOOK LIKE WINDOW MICROSOFT STUFF.  IT IS EVIL. AND IT IS JUST 1 CLIK AWAY.
Mary

7 comments:

Rebecca Nelson said...

Mary...I'm so sorry. :( I trust very little these days. I do not open ANY forwards unless I first receive an email from the sender saying it's coming. We finally installed a high-cost anti-virus program and it works. I stay off You-tube as much as possible because that where TONS are coming from.

Hope it gets better~

xoRebecca

Lynn-Teacupstitches said...

Hi Mary!
I'm so sorry to hear of your virus troubles!
My brother in law is my computer guru working in virus detection for a big company and he has me set up with 4 different mal-ware, spyware type products and they are all free!
This one called Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is wonderful and has found some nasty stuff on my computer.
You do have to run the scan yourself and update to the latest versions so it will find the newest viruses. I run it every couple days but there is a paid version that does it automatically all for you.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free

Just go there and download it and then follow the easy instructions and hopefully it will find the virus that infected your husbands computer!
I also use ad-aware, spybot and AVG which are also free.

Good luck to you!!
Lynn

Mary said...

I want to thank both of you for your advice and encouragement. I am going to try the one Lynn suggested. Right now I am backing my computer up on a ?flash drive ?plug in thingy to back up computers on. I worry more about losing my pictures and clip art than anything. I have finally figured out how to download whole picture folders on cd instead of one at a time. Oddly enough all 3 times I have been hit by this virus once on a news site, another on google images and the third on facebook. when it comes to email I don't open anything if I don't know who it is. I have no problem dumping whole pages of email listings with out looking at them. My husband got his when he was checking his email on yahoo.
Thanks again for your help and advice and encouragement. Hugs to both of you. Mary

Rosie Nixon Fluerty said...

Mary thank you so much for placing a link to my photography blog on your blog. I've had that exact same virus years ago and now I back up my computer (though this is a good reminder to do it again) and I bought good virus software. I've used tha malware bytes just this weekend and my computer was clear. I rarely open these round "robin emails" that folk keep sending to all their contact and I never open an attachment on one of them.

Jaluza Scrap said...

Thanks for the loving comment.
This bag was my mother. She wore on her honeymoon and is with me a long time.
I want to keep and pass on to my daughter, granddaughter ...
Hugs from Brazil.

Computer Repair Falls Church VA said...

computer virus is a portion of a program code that has been designed to furtively copy itself into other such codes or computer files. It is usually created by a prankster or vandal to effect a non-utilitarian result or to destroy data and program code. Thanks a lot.

karlascottage.typepad.com said...

That is a tricky virus, a friend of mine fell for it, and he is a computer programer!