It’s not your fault. You wanted to stop pop-ups and downloaded a free pop-up blocker and now have more than ever. You were probably tricked in to downloading a marketing application that eliminated the competition’s pop-up software from your PC and then served itself as the sole source of pop-ups. So the fact remains that it IS blocking pop-ups, but only those from other advertising companies. When did you forget that even online, there still is no free lunch?
Search engines cannot possibly know the motives behind the products that search results reveal. Performing a search for Free Spyware Removal will elicit results from both legitimate and malicious software makers and without experience, 99% of the people don’t know which is which.
Reading along so far, you may think this is all common sense. It’s not; people put their whole trust in search results, computer technicians, far away technology companies and brands they’ve never heard of. Why? Do people think that if it’s there and it’s free, it must be trustworthy? That’s the thinking that gets computer users suckered in to malicious traps (and feeds hungry computer technicians).
If that same person were offered a front door lock and key free of charge by a stranger, should they snatch it up and install and use it instantly without question? Or wouldn’t you rather expect a home invasion to occur in short order… “I don’t know detective, somehow they had a key to my house!”
The unfortunate flip side to free software like antivirus applications is that they are also free for malicious software engineers to reverse engineer the software and defeat it. The class of computer programmer who can pick apart an application and study its workings and behavior is not a programmer you want working against you.
The dominating worldwide culture is swaying toward, ‘free lunch’ territory. Free music, movies, software, operating systems, phone service, Internet, downloads and having a million cyber friends have never lead to innovation. Luckily, the feeling that we deserve free lunches in this day and age spreads across all personality types both honest and dishonest.
While I won’t promote any defensive software here, it is best argued that people get in to their heads the idea to pay for whatever they end up using. Researching different options and paying $30 to $70 for a full year of protection cannot really be that much of a set back financially. It’s one or two tanks of gas. It’s a cheap dinner for six or a somewhat romantic dinner for two. It’s also a lot cheaper than fixing a problem. The expression for this paragraph is that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.
Paying for software is not only something that victimized computer users oppose, it’s something that malicious application makers oppose. They want a free lunch too! This means that for one purchase that frustrates, confuses or disappoints an honest computer user, that Internet surfer just entered a new, safer level of computer protection that will quietly and securely result in more happiness in the coming year.
Now what happens? You read this information, want to stop pop-ups and inadvertently download a malicious software that pummels you and your family and co-workers with pop-ups from just ONE marketing firm rather than several… It is now officially, finally and rightly, your fault.
