Since my initial encounter with the malware program "Antivirus 2008" I have been recruited to clean up several other computers. While it has proven to be time consuming every time, I have been successful in each case, thanks to a bit of online research, and several fabulous open source and/or freeware scan tools.

It's still a daunting task. These programs embed themselves so thoroughly that no single scan tool has yet proven to completely rid a system of all traces, which allows them to re-spawn. It requires a lot of patience and many, many hours of scanning to hunt down every tentacle and destroy the infestation. Prevention is the key. If you haven't already done so, I suggest you immediately download and install a few of the programs that have kept my systems clean for years now.

Here's My List:

Mozilla FireFox: This award winning browser alone, seems to prevent a lot of the garbage from sneaking in.

AVG Antivirus: IMHO the best antivirus program out there. Though I have had to re-install a fresh dowload a few times to keep it working, that is the most trouble I ever had with it, and I've been using AVG free for at least four years. I recently installed the new 8.0 free edition and am just as pleased with it's performance so far, and find it to be much faster than the 7.5 versions of the program.

Spyware Blaster: Does a great job of keeping the crud out of your computer in the first place. If you choose to use the totally free version, be sure to perform the manual updates, and always enable all protection.

Adaware: I have used the SE Personal version for many years, and find it to be excellent when used in conjunction with Spyware Blaster and AVG.

Spybot Search and Destroy: I've only been using this program for a year or so, but find that it does occasionally pick up a few items that the others miss. I rarely scan with it since the other programs on my list seem to catch most of the unwanted crud that might otherwise filter in.

And there you have it. Just be certain to perform weekly updates on each of these programs - or shell out the money for the paid automatic versions if you can't trust yourself to keep the databases current. It would be worth it in the long run; here's why - MTA techicians are paid $90/hour to fix these kinds of problems, and Computer Renaissance Charges $120 to wipe a system clean and re-install windows. Wiping the system is a lot easier than recovering control of a computer that's hit with one of these infections - but you will lose everything - all your programs, and all of the data as well.

Happy Computing Everyone!

Kimberly