A Virus Is The Last Thing I Need

I’ve owned a PC since 1993 and today is the second time ever in those 16 years that I’ve found myself at the mercy of a virus. The last virus I had was the worm that went around with a IE6 update. It wasn’t too long after that that I abandoned Internet Explorer as my primary browser and development tool.

Considering that I make my living with a computer, any downtime is bad time. While I wouldn’t say it’s rare for me to download and install programs from the internet, I would say that on those occasions I take every precaution possible to make sure that it’s a safe file. Namely, I know the site that I’m downloading from, or the site is highly recommended by other knowledgeable web professionals. If I’m not sure, I don’t download.

Before I continue with this post…If you happened to stumble upon this post after doing a search for help in removing Antivirus System Pro, just hop on over to BleepingComputer.com for detailed instructions on manually removing this nastly little virus.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts about having a dual-monitor setup so that I can watch videos and Hulu and continue to work without compromising space on my 22″ monitor. Well, unfortunately, the smaller monitor only has an RGB display meaning that it will have either a red, green or blue hue. Since it’s a Dell monitor, I had the bright idea (borne out of frustration over the display) to find the appropriate driver for it. Yep, you guessed it – hopped out on Google and the rest, as they say, is history.

In other previous posts I’ve mentioned that I’ve been out of work since July. Well my apartment complex puts out a monthly newsletter and the office said I could put a flyer in if I was willing to stuff them in the newsletters and then distribute them to all the apartments. On Friday I started print up the flyers and wound up running out of toner and the colored paper I was printing on and had to drag myself to Office Depot on Saturday to get more. Got back from the store and finished printing up the 300+ flyers I needed for the newsletters. Darned good thing I did because while I was working this morning – about 9:30am or so – all of a sudden I started getting infected file messages in the corner of my screen and then there was an antivirus software popup screen and then IE opened up to a porn site and then everything else I tried to click on generated an error. Well isn’t that nice.

By the time IE had opened the porn site, I knew I’d been hit by a virus. And did I mention that the reason I knew that the antivirus stuff was bogus is because I don’t use antivirus software?

In too many instances when I’ve tried to use AV software, I’ve found that all it really does is bog my computer down. If I have 2 gigs of RAM and an 800 MHz front-side bus and it’s a dual-core processor, I want to click on something and there be a reaction. I don’t want to click, wait for Windows to say “Oh, hey! She clicked on something!” and then have to wait for an AV program to not only confirm that I clicked on something but that the thing that I clicked on was “safe.” Waiting on Windows is enough of a pain in the butt.

Well, my need for speed backfired on me. I spent approximately 7 hours trying to get rid of this stupid “Antivirus System Pro” bug that pretty much took over my computer. Because Firefox is an independent browser from the Windows operating system, and because of my refusal to use IE, I was finally able to do some quick searches on Google (ironic, ain’t it?) to find a way to get my machine cleaned up. I finally found some relief after following most of the directions I found on BleepingComputer.com. I say I followed most of the directions because many of the files that BC recommended be removed, couldn’t be found. Why’s that, you ask? Very simple. Almost every post I found about this particular virus gave manual instructions for removal on an XP machine. Oh yeah, I have Vista. Truly the worst piece of crap ever conceived.

In any event. The virus itself isn’t harmful. It doesn’t do anything to destroy the machine or delete files or anything like that. Its only purpose is to disrupt your use of the computer by popping up error messages indicating there is an infected file any time you click on a program or try to open a file. They’re hoping to scare the user into buying their software, which probably contains other malware.

With quick fingers and the use of a browser other than IE, you too can overcome this nasty little bugger. Just remember BleepingComputer.com.

And yeah, I now have AVG installed…