Viruses, Adware & Spyware

So, I've learned a lot about viruses this past week. Who knew that viruses, adware and spyware were mutually exclusive but similarly symptomatic? My laptop picked up something at camp--and no not band camp. Though that whole idea and a recent comment from a pastor at church got me thinking about people that use computers for porn (if you're not following my tangents the American Pie movie is running through my mind while I contemplate a unit I taught to a health class in the Reading Writing Center on STDs ). I bet a lot people that use the web inappropriately pick up a STCD (sexually transmitted computer disease or STCV sexually transmitted computer virus). This was not what my computer had, but it sure had something.

I upgraded my Norton but that did not do the trick. Lucky for me I have a fantastic tech-team at my school, so I asked one of them, Curtis, who explained this kind of rambo-marketing many people, who actually understand this techno-world, would call Ad-ware. Then a friend told me to download two freebies: Ad-aware and Spybot (or something with Search & Destroy in its name). It worked, or the combination of Norton, Spybot and Ad-aware worked. My laptop, while still sluggish, is at least not assaulting me with urgent messages about Trojans which send me to commercial sites selling virus protection. My laptop, having deleted over 200 infected files is relatively clean. That's a good thing.