malware SUCKS

[Nev]

I went over the other day to clean malware off my little brother's computer. He'd more or less been doing the computing equivalent of having unprotected sex with every single person he'd ever talked to - porn sites and file-sharing programs were the biggest culprits.

I cleaned in excess of <b>5,000</b> infected files off his system. About 3,600 of those I actually had to search for and delete manually after booting from another hard drive just to get it running in safe mode, as they were the result of a piece of adware that loads in safe mode as well and spawns executables all over one's system. Spyware Doctor then found more malware on his system than I've even personally ever heard of.

Now my little brother was being irresponsible, but that's just out of control. I DON'T UNDERSTAND why Windows allows any running ugly-mug program to alter its startup code. I halfway suspect it's so they can put Windows Messenger in the startup every time you look around (it loads itself when you start Outlook Express and I think a few other things as well), and allow the same thing for companies like Real, but I am *so* sick and tired of cleaning bugs - as WELL as stuff like RealPlayer - out of my own and other people's startup folders. I swear...for all Gates' and Ballmer's millions, I cannot think of them as truly intelligent men.

[SineSwiper]

Depending on the level of security (ie, if you allow the program to run as root), the same thing could happen on a Linux machine. An OS is only as stupid as the person using it.

Granted, IE/OE/Windows has more than its share of security holes that spyware can take advantage of, but most just rely on human stupidity to click Yes on every little prompt that come their way. No OS can prevent that.