Last few days I was plaged by this evil program called "IE-AntiVirus".

When I tred to open my Window Explorer or IE 7, a window appeared telling me that I had trojan programs and needed to scan my system to fix it, suggesting http://free-viruscan/id/4912933/4/1..

It is so doggedly persistent that I had to try all kinds of anit-virus programs, spam blockers, and Mcafee, Spydoctor, Trend-Micro's Housecall, Oncall, etc. with no avail.

I could not rest well for a couple of days, because I got so mad about the whole thing. But then, as I started to pray about it, it dawned on me that it all started when I downloaded the freeware: avsvideotools.exe. I remembered when I installed the program, many many pop-up windows opened up, showing all kinds of dirty porn photos.

So, I located the programs that came with it and deleted them all. And only then, hurah, my problem stopped.

Before then, I tried REGEDIT, and many many other advices on Internet with no success.

I hope some others who have the same problem find a relief from such evil program by the simple method that I emoplyed.

Hell to those who promote IE-AntiVirus!

Never use online scan from unknown organization... also I strongly recommend that never use free anti-virus too...

If you ever see a pop up window telling you that you have a virus, and should click here to remove it - that's code for "please click the link so I can give you a virus".

Most freeware isn't free. A lot of it is because the software takes what it needs from you. Sometimes that means it advertises to you when you try to use your computer. Sometimes that means it collects info about what you do with your computer, and sells that to marketers. Sometimes that means it recruits your computer into a botnet and uses it to launch DDoS attacks. But, generally, if it's free, there's a nefarious reason. That's certainly not the case with all freeware, but video "tools" are pretty often laced with some kind of trojan.

I use AVG's free AV program, with Spybot S&D, and Ad-aware. I've used these programs for years and feel as safe as one can feel with the security of my computer. Oh, and Zone Alarm is the firewall.

That said, I always tell people that the moment you hit the keys to enter something into your computer, you should assume that it's been seen by the world. Hackers can easily write software to target just your computer, and being unknown, no AV program will keep you perfectly protected. Yes, some use heuristics, but there are plenty of ways around that too.

Wanna know something funny?! My wife installed a game on the computer called "l@m3rz". I did a system restore to wipe that crap off. She just thought it was cool. A perfect example as to why I don't store sensitive passwords on my computer.