Is your system infected by tons of pop-ups? Bugged by an obnoxious rash of spontaneously opening windows? Is your computer feeling sluggish and fatigued? Is your computer getting a little irritable and cranky? Are you getting a little paranoid because those pop-ups seem to read your mind?

The cure has got to be an extra-strength, super-duper Pop-Up Blocker! Right?

Wrong.

There are several causes for pop-ups, but they may well be the result serious case of malware infection. A serious illness for sure! And blocking those pop-ups is still going to leave you with a system full of malware infection! You can’t cure this disease with some cosmetic, off-the-shelf cover-up. What you need is some serious prescription medicine that gets to the root cause of the infection!

Case Study: Your first clue: the advertising pop-ups are amazingly similar to searches or other surfing you have done recently. For instance, some good folks we know were recently looking to buy a new car. They surfed the web for reviews and specifications of a number of different models. And low and behold, car related banner ads and pop-ups mysteriously started sprouting all over the place. (It is a little scary how these computers can read minds, isn’t it!)

In this case, the pop-ups were a symptom of a much deeper malady, an acute infection of spyware and ad-ware. What was needed was some serious treatment combined with a good dose of preventive medicine.

Here is some serious treatment:

1. A strong firewall immune system.
2. A full-body anti-virus scan.
3. A couple of good shots of inoculation.
4. A good dose or two of malware anti-biotics.
5. Regular supplemental updates of immune boosters, anti-virus signatures, inoculants and targeted anti-biotics.
6. A balanced diet of fresh system and program updates.
7. A good multi-vitamin supplement.
8. Shedding a few pounds of junk files and other dead weight.
9. Daily exercise of safe computing.

Check out our page Minimum Safe PC for more information.

And then and only then, once you and your computer are healthy again, a judicious application of a topical pop-up blocker may be just the right medicine. It will help you keep your sanity, without blocking the symptoms of a much deeper hidden malady.

- Practice Safe Computing -

Posted on Wednesday, May 11th, 2005 at 11:55 AM and filed under All Posts, Anti-Malware Tools, General, Malware. You can follow any responses to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or you may trackback from your own site.