And Now, a Malware Rant, for Your Reading Pleasure.

Well, it’s about time for another personal observation. (Read that as “rant.”) I hate malware. You may say, “But, Dr. Bill, we all hate malware!” Yes, but it’s just plain annoying. Case in point, last night I was minding my own business doing research for the next netcast when I saw something I thought would be nice to install on my system. So, I downloaded it and proceeded to install it. I got the typical stupid questions like, “Do you want to install this additional option and let me take over your browser and put you on some search engine that you hate and mess up your computer from now on?”

No, wait, that’s not what it said. It said something like, “Do you want to do this wonderful thing that will help your computer from here on out run better and faster?” Well, of course, I know better than to believe what some malware infection install program tells me, so I always click the button for, “No, I don’t want your stupid, evil, ugly, nasty, malware cluttering up my system!” However, sometimes… when it’s very late at night and you’re very tired, you click the wrong button! And, have you ever noticed that a program that is benign, and possibly even helpful, will say something like are, “Are you sure you want to install me?” While malware, upon clicking the wrong button, doesn’t ask you, “Are you sure?” It just installs itself and messes up your computer! Now, keep in mind, what happened last night was not a virus infection. But, it was a browser hijack malware program and it hijacked my home screen and changed that home screen to “Yahoo!” It also changed my default browser to “Yahoo!”

Now, what does this tell you about “Yahoo!?” It means that they contracted with this evil, ugly, stupid, sociopath developer of this stinking malware to advertise their crumby web site. Again, what does this tell you about “Yahoo!?” It tells me that I don’t want have anything to do with “Yahoo!” It tells me I don’t want to use their sorry, third rate search engine. It tells me I don’t want have anything to do with them at all. And, it tells me that “Yahoo!” is plainly evil and will use any means necessary to get you to set up your system to go to their fourth rate web site. (I know, their rate is falling fast.) Now you know me… I’m just a big, harmless fuzzball. I’m kind, considerate, giving… I have even been called “sweet.” However, if I were ever to be tempted to extend my middle finger in the direction of a web search engine I would certainly have to give serious consideration to “Yahoo!” Just sayin’.

“So, Dr. Bill, did you get your system cleaned?” Why, yes… yes, I did. But only after much research, many operations using Malwarebytes Anti-malware… as well is some specialized tools that I found on-line. I now have a clean system, and my search engine is back to good ol’ Google… as well as my homepage. The moral of the story: “Don’t download and install any software while you’re very tired, and sleepy, and carefully read the warnings before you click on anything that is designed to infect your system, such as these stupid, ugly, their-mother-dresses-them-funny malware installation programs that they put an otherwise, possibly decent software; but… come to think of it, it makes you wonder about the people writing the “decent” software… as to why they would allow the malware infection option to even be in their program… just as a matter of principle. I would not want to have it in MY program, but that’s just me. Something to think about.