Tangential Piss-Off..

This is not about politics, this is about a monumental scam and mega-piss-off being perpetrated by some "anti-malware" companies out there. Here's the deal:

These slimy bastids are seizing on a situation where you download some music or toolbar or some other artsy-fartsy piece of crap and it hauls in something called the "seqrchqu" or "searchnu" toolbar in that takes over your internet browser and -- no matter where the hell you've been -- it brings you back to http://www.searchqu.com/406 or something like that. It's sorta like those annoying web sites that run a Java Script routine that won't let you leave their site. Except it always brings you there first -- to their gimpy, pathetic search engine page. You know, he one that looks like Google before it took Viagra.

The intricacies are actually rather prosaic but it grabbed the War Planner's computer by the short and curlies and refused to release it from its death grip.

I immediately went out all over the internet looking for a solution and got sucked in by all of these lame sites that said:

Plagued by the deadly Searchnu/Searchnu virus? You better get rid of it post-haste before you lose all of your data, all of your teeth fall out, and your member becomes gangrenous. Here are the simple steps to fix it:

(1) Reboot into safe mode.

(2) Download our anti-virus software.

(3) ..run it.

..or variations on that theme.

I immediately went into Chicken Little mode and hit it with everything I had on my hard drive: Malware Bytes, TDSSKiller, Hijack This! and other powerful malware detergents. I even went out and got ComboFix and a bunch of other freebies to throw at it -- and all of them drew the collar; they could not find one byte of malevolence on my machine.

So I downloaded that mega-piece-of-crap, PC Tools Anti-Spyware, and installed it on my machine. After about 15 minutes to install it (!) and another 45 minutes to run its bloated, turtle-like scan, it reported I had a plethora of cookies in my temp locker that could possibly be used to phone home but nothing worth getting in a twist about. But if I wanted to get rid of them, it's gonna cost me almost a centibuck to get the license.

..assholes.

Well, back to searching until I found out this thread on the Mozilla site and dutifully followed the instructions.

All is well now in my office and things are back to normal. Except that I have this slimy feeling that maybe all of those anti-virus companies are using these scare tactics to get us to pony up for their piece of crap software to cure their own viruses.

This is my new Easter Bonnet:

..isn't it becoming? My ass hurts. I am going to bed.

Happy Easter, y'all.

-30-