I’m often chastising people for running their computers with little or nothing between them and the internet. Most times, these people came to me complaining about their poor service or inability to do things on the internet. Well, I can only do so much over the phone, but I do my best and preach the sermon of responsible and safe internet connectivity that usually falls on deaf ears.

Here’s a recent, real-life example of why I’ll keep preaching.

Then I loaded the copy of AVG that I had ready for the occasion. One scan and there were 38 trojans in the bag, 34 of which the program “healed” and four of which I had to dig out manually. Another scan with AVG gave me several more. The total after three scans was 57 – all contracted during the two minutes I was online with Microsoft’s firewall up and running, and that’s not counting what the Microsoft anti-malware scanner caught at the door. To be on the safe side I re-formatted the drive, reinstalled everything, and then after installing AVG, ZoneAlarm (Pro) and the spyware catcher, I went online and immediately got the latest updates for Windows and the three protective programs as well.

Practicing Unsafe Web (Bill’s Web)

The article is short, and worth the read. If you’re connected to the internet without proper protection between you and the world, you’re already infected. If that describes you, you are in fact now a http://jonathanmurray.com/greymatter/archives/00000368.htm part of the problem.