NASTY, NASTY: WATCH WHAT YOU CLICK ON

I know. I know. I’ve been warned for years, as have we all. Still, a moment of inattention is all it takes. Fortunately the computer virus I recently acquired was more bloody nuisance than anything destructive.

Still, I’ll tell my story here as yet another reminder to all.

Monday, three days after Christmas, was finally a day for sleeping in and reading/napping whenever the urge struck. For the first time in weeks I had only one task on tap. Even then it was something I wanted to do, rather than having to do.

Sometime during the day I wanted to sit down and write some stuff on my blog. Already I had stuff about the Boxing Day ice storm bouncing around in my head. I was looking forward to writing some of it down, not only to clear my head, so to speak, but to also finally get some new stuff on the blog. (Check out White Christmas, White-Knuckle Boxing Day when it gets here.)

But first I took a detour to Facebook to touch bases and get up to date there. In the process I noticed a post from a friend and former colleague, whom I haven’t spoken to in some time. (That post, which had no Comment option, now that I think of it, has since disappeared, for reasons about to become obvious.)

Facebook user fee?

The post urged me to join a group that was vowing to NOT pay for using Facebook. Purportedly, the company planned to start charging a user fee some time in June.

Having been through occasions when a social Web site switched to a paid subscription protocol, I’ve been curious to see if Facebook ever dared taking a similar stance. Personally, I don’t think they will. But it must be a tremendous temptation. Even if in the process they lost huge masses of users who refused to pay, imagine how many would remain, ready to cough up hard-earned coin just to avoid losing what for some borders on addiction.

But I digress, as usual.

So I clicked on the link which took me to a group site where I could join in this anti-fee movement. I was more curious than committed, so when I saw a URL said to lead to a site that explained everything, I clicked on it.

When nothing happened, I looked closer and realized it was merely the address and not an active link. So I swept and copied the address, opened a new tab, and pasted in the address.

BIG mistake

Oh oh. Should NOT have done that.

My full-screen Mozilla Firefox browser window, with a handful of tabs opened, switched to a single, smaller window. A disjointed cacophony of sound and voices erupted from the speakers. A jumble of text and images jumped around the window flashing off and on.

The window itself jumped all around the screen, disappearing and reappearing, seemingly at random.

It was somewhat disconcerting and most annoying.

While the noise occasionally included sound bites from a podcast I’d listened to earlier in the day, there was one female voice that dominated, repeating over and over again  a rather stupid announcement: “Hey guys, I’m watching porn on my computer.”

Embarrassing, I assume, if one caught this virus on a company machine in an office. Simply dumb and annoying when it was only the cats and I in the room at the time.

And then there was one truly disgusting photo that kept popping up. Not sexually pornographic but obscene in a way that leaves me unwilling to describe it. I realize, of course, that if I don’t, I raise curiosity and open things to possibly the worst speculation.

It didn’t stay long enough for me to study in terms of determining the context and I was reluctant to look at it anyways.

But I guess as a warning to others who might stumble upon this mess, it seemed to be an image of a bloody infant, but not one that was merely newborn.

I felt assaulted

I know it was all designed to be upsetting but that didn’t stop it from working. I not only felt annoyed, I felt assaulted.

I even became a little frantic to get it off my screen in case it was further polluting and infecting other files.

With it jumping around so much, it was impossible to click on Close. So I called up Task Manager to shut down Firefox, figuring that just closing the window might not be enough.

I ran a system-wide scan using my free copy of the anti-virus software AVG. When the scan eventually finished, it reported no problems.

Unhappy with my old standby, Norton, I installed the free version of AVG a year or so ago on the advice of my oldest son, a professional computer expert who said that as far as he could see, at the time, this was the best free anti-virus program.

It worked fine and I was quite happy with it and used it on both my desktop and my laptop.

However, a few months back when I went to get another update, I got this message about having to buy the program if I wanted further updates. Given that other purchased programs subsequently charge a subscription fee for updates, I didn’t find that particularly unreasonable. (I confess I may have misread things in terms of purchase becoming mandatory, but when I declined the offer to purchase, I certainly didn’t get a way to download any updates.)

I eventually told my son and he said he’d check around to see if there was something better.

Meanwhile, of late, I’d get these confusing pop-up messages informing me that something (the free AVG program itself?) was reporting that the auto-protection was turned off. I’d go turn it back on and still the message would pop up from time to time.

Paying the price

So faced with this highly irritating virus, and feeling my computer was suddenly vulnerable, I decided to log on via Internet Explorer, which I rarely use, and purchase a full copy of AVG. I was so fed up with security problems that I even opted for the money-saving two-year subscription. I downloaded and installed the program and will also receive a copy on CD, which I will keep as a back-up. (I know I could always go and download again but what if some virus screwed up my ability to log on with any browser software?)

This time when I ran a scan, AVG recognized the “threats” and got rid of them. However, when I ran Firefox again, its files, of course, were still corrupted and infected. And when I let the viral display run a bit longer before shutting Firefox down, the virus kept adding a fictional newsgroup with an inflammatory racist name to my Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail program. It also set up an offensive e-mail that apparently I could send to friends with just one careless click.

So I un-installed this infected copy of Firefox — without losing my personal preferences and setups — and used IE to download another free copy, which worked fine, with no signs of that extremely rude virus, and all my tabs and bookmarks and settings.

I know. I’m lucky I didn’t encounter something actually destructive. And lucky I didn’t lose a bunch of stuff on my computer.

I should NEVER have pasted in that unknown URL, especially when I was unsure about the continued effectiveness of my “free” anti-virus software.

I don’t have copies of the “free” and paid versions of AVG to do a direct comparison, but I have the feeling that I get more with the bought version. That’s usually the way.

Anyway, it’s an investment in peace of mind, especially now that I’m more easily distracted and open to occasionally doing things without thinking them through.

As for all those friends who, after the fact, 🙂 recommended other anti-virus programs, including a “free” version of Avast, your advice is a little late. But I DO thank you anyway for your concern and desire to help.

And hope you never have a similarly infuriating experience.

Signed,

The Old Dog (who got caught by a nasty trick that isn’t even new)