Viruses

The Eternal Struggle

Helen Butler, an Internet user in Randolph, Mass., was plagued. After opening an attachment in an email message she thought was from a friend, she started getting a slew of ecards from Blue Mountain, as many as 50 a day.
"This was one of the most frustrating experiences I have encountered. The Blue Screen of Death and system crashes are all minor annoyances compared to this," Butler says.
Butler was blasted by the Blue Mountain worm (W32.HLLW.Cult.C@mm) an irritating bug that masquerades as an ecard from popularand innocent site BlueMountain.com, but gives hackers free access to your computer once it's been launched.
Blue Mountain is part of the new trend in worm/viruses called blended threats. Blended threats combine aspects of viruses and hacker attacks to drill into your computer, often providing a back door for malicious programmers to hijack your system or steal your data.
"What used to be called a virus several years ago is now a virus and then some," says Timo Kissel of antivirus firm Symantec.
Recent wars and global crises have also led to a rise in politically motivated viruses, says Chris Beltoff of antivirus firm Sophos. Spats between India and Pakistan and the ongoing Israeli and Palestinian conflict have led virus writers to join the fray, he says, and your computer may end up as collateral damage.
"I think that people are very disgruntled about some political or religious issue are going to be heard through the use of malicious code," says Beltoff.
Fortunately, even blended threats fail before the might of a good antivirus program. Although it's always best to head off viruses before they attack, Butler successfully killed off the bug and hasn't had a relapse since. "I submitted this information to McAfee, my antivirus program, and within a few days I received a pop-up notification on my PC that the worm was detected and deleted and I have had no problems since," Butler says.

Vanquish Viruses

The best cure for a virus is not to get one. With that in mind, here are some tips for avoiding and curing what the experts call "malware": malicious, infectious software.
Don't Open Those Attachments - The top method for malware to spread itself is still email. Elf bowling, screen savers, online greeting cards . . . folks, if you didn't actually ask for it, don't open it. Send an email message to the person who sent the attachment to you and find out if it's OK. Remember, worms can fake your friends' email addresses.
Ratchet Up Security - To prevent Web sites from infecting your computer, go to your Control Panel. Go to Internet Options (click Start, Settings, and Control Panel). Double-click Internet Options, click the Security tab, and click the Custom Level button under Custom. On the long list of options, change everything possible to Prompt or High Safety except for*Active Scripting*, which should remain set to Enable. (So many Web pages use scripting that to disable it would make it difficult to surf.) That way, when Web sites try to activate programs, your computer will generally ask you first. Refuse requests from sites you don't trust.
Get Antivirus Software - TechiWarehouse recommends any of the leading commercial antivirus programs, such as Norton Internet Security ($14.95) or McAfee VirusScan ($8.88). It's critically important to keep your antivirus software updated, so the now-expired trial version that came with your computer just won't do.

Pop-Ups: Saving Your Eyeballs

In the battle between Web surfers' eyeballs and advertisers' determination, one of the most annoying weapons is the pop-up ad. For the past few years, advertisers have been forcing their messages in front of your window of choice, with dubious results.
At one point in 2001, pop-up king X10, which sells mini video cameras (http://www.x10.com, but don't encourage them by going there), was the fifth most viewed site on the Internet, according to research firm Jupiter MediaMetrix. X10 doesn't release its finances to the public, but anecdotally, TechiWarehouse couldn't find anyone who had actually bought anything from Xl0. The figures likely include numerous inadvertent visits as a result of clicking the ubiquitous pop-up ads.
"When we do surveys of people to find out what the most annoying things on the Internet are, pop-ups actually come out pretty high," said Tom Powledge of Symantec.
The most annoying form of pop-up ad is the mousetrap. Pioneered by porn sites, mousetraps open new windows when you try to close ads. Eventually, you have to quit your browser.
A close second in annoyance are those pop-up ads that appear to be system messages; they're just sleazy and spread fear. Any messagecontaining the word "optimize" that pops up while you're surfing is an ad, as are those "browser checkers" that claim you have security flaws in your system. Don't click the ads; click the X in the upper-right corner to close.
Along with pop-up ads go pop-under ads. Supposedly less annoying than pop-up ads, these windows appear under your main browser window, so they don't interrupt your browsing. But they do clutter your Taskbar with dozens of meaningless Internet Explorer windows, making it tough to find the right window when you have minimized Explorer.
Pop-up ads have been steadily increasing as a percentage of all Internet advertising, according to research firm Nielsen/NetRatings. By the first quarter of 2003, pop-up ads made up 4.8% of all Internet ads, up from only 1.8% a year previously. (The online ad market is still dominated by banner ads. And important for our returning visitors is to note is that TechiWarehouse is working onto eliminating pop-up ads on our site totally.)
But browser manufacturers and software companies are on top of the pop-up ad problem. Internet Explorer may dominate the browser world, but other browsers, such as Mozilla, Opera, and Apple's Safari, have responded to consumers' calls by making it simple to cancel pop-up ads. All three browsers detect attempts to open windows without a user's request and simply stop them.
"Our users really wanted the ability to control pop-up ad blocking," said Kurt Knight, Internet product manager at Apple. "This was one of the things we really wanted in our browser."

Once You Pop, You Can Stop

Pop-ups can be occasionally informative (Orbitz's pop-ups often show great air fares), but they're usually pretty annoying. Fortunately, there are several things you can do to disable invasive ads.
Don't Encourage Them - If you dislike pop-up ads, don't click them. That'll send the message to advertisers that pop-up ads aren't an effective form of getting their messages out.
Ditch Explorer - Alternate browsers Mozilla (http://www.mozilla.org) and Opera (http://www.opera.com), and for the Mac, Safari (http://www.apple.com/safari), all provide antipop-up ad options.
Get A Pop-Up Stopper - IE partisans can buy separate pop-up blocker programs to smooth their surfing experiences. Comprehensive Internet security programs, including Zone Labs' ZoneAlarm Pro ($39.88) and Symantec's Norton Internet Security ($14.95), block pop-up ads, but if you want the ad-blocking features but don't want those programs' antivirus and personal firewall functions, we have previously tested and recommended Alexa's latest browser toolbar (http://www.alexa.com). ISP EarthLink also provides a free pop-up ad blocker to all of its subscribers.

Source : http://www.techiwarehouse.com/engine/6a876b0f/Can-There-Be-a-More-Annoying-Place-Than-This?