Viruses Sailing Around

Over the years I have seen quite a few "bad" viruses being sent over the internet. I haven't had issues with most of those, but know people that have. I haven't had a virus on my computer since 1995. Until two weeks ago that is. Two weeks ago I was sitting on a news website (not CNN) when my computer starting acting very strangely.

We tried letting our AV software take care of it, to no avail. We tried so many ways to get rid of it. No luck, so as the computer geeks that we are we knew the last option we had was to go back to manufacture state. Yep, we wiped everything on this computer off. It took hours to get this awful virus gone, but we managed it.




Fast forward a week. My father-in-law was on a website that he pays to watch movies on. All of a sudden his AV software went nuts. Within seconds this virus had destroyed every file on his system. Back to factory default for his was the only option. After spending hours redoing his system and re-installing programs he needed, it's back to how he had it.

Fast forward about 4 days. My mother-in-laws sister called. Her computer was acting strangely. Mom took no time in getting her system back to default over the phone. It took hours on the phone but mom was able to get her system back up and running properly.

There are 6 other computers in this house. We refuse to say what is on all of our minds. "When are the next ones coming"?  In each of the three cases,we had multiple viruses. Decompression bombs, Win32 issues. They are horrible viruses.

Why don't the people that write these terrible things use their gifts of programming for good things? Get a job doing something useful. Make AV software that REALLY works. Program software or games. But for all that is holy, stop using that gift to destroy one's files, one's computers.

That got me realizing just how vulnerable to viruses computers really are. Why is it that windows is 95% more likely to catch viruses than Mac's? Some will tell you that it is because Windows itself is a virus to some extent. That could well be true. There is something though in a Mac's programming that doesn't allow so many viruses. Whatever that is could work in Windows based systems as well.

As much as I love my computer and always have, I'm now considering going Mac. I'm sick to death of running the possibility of my computer being down for hours, or even days because of a virus or fourteen. That's right, even with Antivirus software installed my computer caught 14 horrible viruses.

To whoever keeps writing these things; I hate you! That is all.