Spyware/virus-common?

[Sam!]

I'm wondering how many people have ever had a virus or spyware on their computer or have it now? Do you have a Windows or other OS?

[big_johnson]

1 out of 6 computers have spyware on them.....

Im running XP Pro, and I get spyware from time to time, but its like every 4 weeks. I keep my comp on lockdown

[Sam!]

Geez.. once a month is pretty sad. Wow. I am SO glad I have a Mac!

[emotionalcutie]

I've had spyware and I have Windows..but now I have some program that blocks it or something like that.

[Doug]

I got spyware all the time on my home computer. Viruses are still rare because I have reliable virus protectors, but spyware is very common.



Doug

[Skye]

I get no spyware. The one spyware program I had was this extraordinarily nefarious and very tricky little thing from a French ads company. It was almost impossible to remove and it affected every browser as a whole, which means "every browser," e.g. Firefox, Mozilla, Opera and of course without fail Internet Explorer. But the thing could do that because it was editing the hosts file through a hijacked system file. So, basically, it got through a virus scan somehow, most likely through a zip archive. Since then, I have Norton run on max heuristics and of course scan within archives. I did before that too, but somehow I did not have it enabled. Perhaps it was a wave of insomnia? Oh well.



You may be thinking, ah, that sounds like a virus far more than a spyware application, but nope, it is most indeed a ?ad delivery? system for a French company. Basically, its purpose is to fairly consistently redirect you to one of their ?sponsored sites? every 3rd webpage loaded instead of the page you typed into the URL field or bookmark you clicked, doesn?t matter which browser you use. Annoying little bastard if I do say so myself. I finally got rid of it a day later, but I felt violated so I did a fresh reinstall of Windows.