I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ve had a virus.
No, not that kind of virus. The other kind.
We all look for bargains, and over the years I have downloaded a lot of “free” or “open” software. I’ve rarely had a problem. In the past two weeks, I’ve been badly clobbered by the wonderful folks at Incredibar with their devil program called MySmart.com.
The people who put up free software, say a utility or a photo editing program, would really like to get some money, some how. So the nice people at Incredibar had this idea. They pay some of the those offering free software to bundle MySmart.com into that free software. You download the free stuff you want, and as a bonus you get MySmart.com
What does MySmart.com do? It takes over your Internet browser: Explorer, Chrome, Mozilla. And every time you try to open a new tab or window, up pops MySmart instead of your default page. Now, you can still search and find things on that tab, but you are first hit with flashing ads and other junk. Your usual page of , say, Chrome add-ins ready for use, are not there. Just this malware that wants to divert you. It’s actually called AdWare and it’s a problem.
What did I do? Well my virus software did not block this, so I’ve gotten new virus software. One computer was so slow and compromised, it is in the repair shop. This one I saved by doing something called a System Recovery which let me “roll” back the computer to its configuration a month ago, before it was infected.
I’m going to start writing about food now, very next blog. But if you see MySmart.com show up on your computer, treat it seriously and viciously.
There aint’ no free lunch after all.