Yikes! Hackers After My Blog

Marathon
No LL

When I tried to log in to this blog today, I got rejected by Google. The error message said that the request looked like it had been hacked by spyware. Rather than try to circumvent the error, I stopped to think about it for a while. It is true that I've been complaining about my slow computer for a while. It is also true that my computer is protected by firewalls and by anti-virus software, but not anti-spyware software. Hmmm; I wonder if it is time to boost the protection. I would surly hate to have my blog password hacked.

I checked the recommendations of Kim Komando (a source of PC lore that I respect and highly trust). She recommended Ad Aware. There is a free version that I used in the past, but this time I went for the paid Pro version. It let me download a free scanner. The scanner turned up hundreds (actually more than 200) spyware, malware and keyboard loggers on my PC. Yikes! I was cowed, and I paid the $39.95 for the Pro version and let it clean out the bad guys. It worked. Google now accepts my login and my computer is running noticeably faster even without a reboot.

My friend John likes his Mac and he loves to point out that he needs no such protections. Still, I use lots of software that is not available on Macs or on Linux. It's like Esperanto. I acknowledge that Esperanto may be superior to English, but English is the lingua franca.