Unfortunately for me, sometimes I cannot stop myself from tinkering. Every once in a while I take a big chance and play around with important settings on my computer. Please, don’t ask why. I just do.

A few months ago I was tinkering with my desktop and I temporarily disabled my anti-spyware program. I had very good intentions and I thought I could cover my tracks quickly. Besides, I had more than one spyware protection program running at the same time, so what’s the big deal.

 Except I didn’t have multiple layers of coverage and I went too far. In the hour or so that my computer was without anti-spyware protection one or more spyware thugs crept into my computer and bollixed up the works. It was awful. I couldn’t do anything. Almost every screen I brought up contained a message which mocked me. I was in computer hell.

 First I tried to fix things myself. I tried to reinstate the computer programs I already had loaded in my memory. No luck. All my built-in protection was blocked.

You know how every once in a while you get spam email from anti-spyware program companies offering free trials. It so happened that I got a couple of those. From very well-known companies. I tried to download the free trial versions. Truly, these free trials were from companies whose names you all know. I tried using them.

I learned that modern spyware is programmed to reject the big name anti-spyware programs cold. None of them downloaded, so none of them came to my rescue. I was stumped, perhaps checkmated.

 After a while I turned to help desks. I called a few different places on the phone asking if they had ideas. They offered to help me but at pretty steep prices. And they all warned that I might have to pay even more than those initial high price quotes if things were worse than I described on the phone. I guess I could have been able to afford to pay for one or more of these services. But something in my pride told me that was a coward’s way out.

Finally, after a while (I won’t tell you how long to avoid embarrassing myself) I hit upon a new scheme. As I said, I learned that the malware that invaded my computer did not allow me to download the big name brands of anti-spyware programs. Since that was the case, I wondered whether the invaders would also treat Brand X anti-spyware programs with the same disdain.

 I downloaded some off-brand anti-malware programs (from my laptop onto a thumbdrive, which I placed into the USB of my infected desktop). If you search you will find that there are many free offbrand programs waiting to be tried if you only find them.

 My theory was that the nasty malware might know how to knock out the big brand names, but surely they are not be so well programmed that they can anticipate every small program out there in the world.

I tried a few programs. And then a few more. To make a long story short I finally found a free program that cut through the enemy and that actually cleaned them up and kicked them out of my life. I was finally able to restore my system to its previous level of operation and close the chapter on some nasty uninvited guests.

I may never stop tinkering. I still like to try unexplored paths. Now I know to be a tiny bit more cautious and I know that the big name stuff can take second place to brand X sometimes.

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Tags: computer hell, important settings, infected desktop, multiple layers of coverage, nasty malware, programmed to reject, spyware protection program, spyware thugs