STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

You should dl an anti-virus program. Avast! is a free program with free updates. I use that myself.

You should also use an adware program. My suggestion is Lavasoft Ad-Ware. Also a free program and is really good. If you want a second adware/spyware program, there's Spy Bot or something along that name. I don't use it but two can be a safe bet.

If you have dsl/cable as an internet connection, I suggest getting a firewall. It can be complicated but it would be really beneficial. I use Zone Labs Security. There is a free version so thats a good option. They also offer a subscription service for a price which offers everything you would need to pretty much protect your computer like antivirus protection, firewall, adware, etc. I also really like the McAfee firewall because it's really easy but there's a cost to that so I stopped using it (I had a one year subscription when I had Comcast).

Remember to clean your computer out every week or so because all of these programs would be useless if you don't use it.

You can find these programs on download.com

Hope this helps!

Frankly, I have never heard of anything like that!

Don't you run Spyware, Virus Protection and a pop- up blocker? If you don't I hope you do from this point on.

Now that your computer is clean you should really send some emails out to anybody that you may have emailed while all these worms were in your computer. Worms are insidious and are spread often times by email distribution and opening attachments and an unscanned address book. If you were infected and emailed someone, depending on the type of worm involved they could have received it from you. If they were running adequate virus protection they may have caught it.

Worms are generally not spread through the pop-ups and ads that come up, those involve SpyWare which can be just as troublesome for Trojan Horses (someone remotely hacking into your system)

Not to sound harsh but please update and run protection on your computer often, and download a pop up blocker there are so many free one's out there.

It's just not worth going through that BS or spreading the BS to others.

*Of course I had anti spyware on my computer-don't they all?? 

No, computers don't come with anti-spyware, some come with anti virus program installed, generally McAfee's although Symantics makes probably the best anti virus software and now have a downloadable spyware program. Symantics automatically updates itself so the updates are always current.

Not all spyware is detectable by one Spyware program, several should be used at the same time. There is Pest Patrol, Spy Bot Search and Destroy, SpyWare Blaster and Ad-Ware. All of these programs can be downloaded for free.

A pop-up blocker should be available through Ad-Ware and it is always best to run another one, Yahoo, Earthlink (don't need an Earthlink account), Google offer them for free and a great site to check out for free downloadable tools is;

www.webattack.com  look for Freeware

Worms are spread through emails, attachments, etc and most prolific for those who use Outlook or Outlook Express, Microsoft products seem to be very subsceptible to them. They invade your address book and can send them self out to those names you have in your address book, of course the receivers will open the mail since they see it is from a Safe name they recognize, only to find later that the mail was encrypted by a worm. It may take time for the worm to spread through their sysytem and they usually end up in the Registry or DDL files.

I just took some courses computer maintenance because I am working with our IT department in the library that I work in. Our technology department is huge and  they needed someone certified on each of the floors for maintaining order.

I took 4 courses and received four various Tech certificates through Microsoft.