At long last, I’ve updated the Spyware & Virus Prevention and Removal section of Michael’s Guide. The last update was several years ago and things have changed drastically in the past few years. Malware is nastier than ever. It poses as your anti-virus program, it blocks you from  removing it and much more. Hopefully this updated guide will assist you in preventing and maybe even removing this stuff. One thing that seems to have changed as well is that the average user may not always be able to remove these things without professional help, so prevention is stll the best policy.

You’ll be seeing many more updates to the site in the next few days. I’m slowly bringing it up to date and making it more useful.

I’ve long talked about the Michael’s Guide section of my site. It includes some instructions and tips on how to help you fix your own computer including an extensive section on viruses and spyware.

While I still believe that a lot of systems can be cleaned by end users, I’ve recently come upon a few systems that were so badly infected that there is no way that the average user could fix them short of reformatting the hard disk (which would result in data loss.)

If you feel you are in this situation, please contact me and I’d be glad to quote you a price on fixing your system. I’ll remove any spyware and viruses, install software to prevent future infections, update Windows with all current patches and updates and more. My prices are reasonable because I consider this a service to the computing community as a whole since infected computers on the internet hurt everyone.

Most of you probbaly already know what a problem spyware is, but here’s an article that attempts to quantify the magnitude of the problem. remember that I’ve posted some info to help you avoid it and remove it in Michael’s Guide.