Works for Me Wednesday...Anti-Spyware!

This past weekend our computer was infected with a terrible, very vigorous virus. Everywhere we went on our computer, whether it was a personal file or a page online, there was a message that it was entering our system and was in the process of deleting files and obtaining passwords. It was scary. I am partly to blame, since I did not renew our anti-spyware package last year. We were just sitting ducks, I guess, dodging other potential viruses so I had a false sense of security. Well...it finally hit us. I, of course, was panicking and purchased an anti-spyware package from Norton Symantec, the top leader in computer security systems. I could not even download the package, because we were so heavily infected. I then called back to the company after countless hours of this going on, and had to upgrade to the remote-access viral removal service they offer. Well, three hours and $100 later, our viruses were gone, thank goodness!!

Couponers beware...

In the meantime, two wonderful computer programmers (I guess that's what you'd call them) from Norton took remote access to our system and found 386 viruses! Many, would you believe it, were coupon bars and coupon printers I had downloaded to print coupons before weekly shopping trips. I maybe downloaded 4 or 5 at most...but there were over 150 named coupons, coupon printers, and coupon bars as viruses. Seems that when downloading one particular printer, many pop up (unknowingly) and contain or are a portal for viruses, spyware, and other "malicious" content. (I don't even want to know what type of "malicious" content!!) It was amazing. I was able to see all of the files they found, and watch them delete them from the system. In the meantime, they also had found that through the virus, "they"... hackers, I guess, were able to access our Visa card number through online purchases from Christmas... I had to call the CC company to report this.

Anyway...to make an already long story shorter, I now know to never download another coupon bar or printer (that's just our choice now...since we learned this the hard way), and that having an Anti-Spyware system on our computer really is worth the money, and really "Works for Me"!!