This first-person account of a reporter’s struggle with spyware is amusing and surprisingly accurate:
I can trace the decline of my computer’s performance to an ill-advised download over the summer. In a pop-music-induced frenzy, I am embarrassed to admit, I went to http://www.kazaa.com, downloaded and installed the free file-sharing service, then proceeded to download (a k a steal) Britney Spears’s and Madonna’s collaborative effort, “Me Against the Music.”
I was about to get my karmic retribution.
In downloading Kazaa, I had inadvertently opened the floodgates to all manner of spyware. By the end of the summer, even after I had deleted Kazaa and installed Norton AntiVirus 2004 – which took care of the virus-related part of the problem – I was unable to open Internet Explorer without being deluged with pop-ups enticing me to buy everything from herbal weight-loss pills to obscure business publications.
My home page would mysteriously try to redirect itself to a site called badgurl.grandstreetinteractive.com. Little gray dialog boxes would pop up in the center of my screen to inform me, shockingly, that my computer might be infected with spyware. Then it would crash.
I really couldn’t relate to the melodramatic descriptions of how intimidating the process of wiping and restoring a hard drive is, however. But I guess for people who don’t do this for a living, that’s a big deal.
Ed Bott 
Thanks for the link – it’s an interesting look at how people get spyware, what the experience is like, and how much people struggle to maintain clean systems. I wonder if XP’s System Restore could have helped roll back to a previous state, as soon as she realized the mistake of installing Kazaa, or if she was aware of this option? Although a good description of steps to clean and reinstall, even now she is probably running with administrator privileges by default – after that virus and spyware experience, part of the recovery should be to run at least privilege. Hopefully future windows versions will make it easier to run at a lower privilege by default.
LOL it’s pretty funny cause if the person would have done a tiny little bit of “homework” they would have known (or at least read the installation part of Kazaa cause it says it’s going to load “spyware”) that Kazaa installs all sorts of spyware/adware, which is why some folks created Kazaa Lite. I think that’s 90% of the problem is people just click click click without reading what they are installing.
Hi
Very informative blog
I note that you could not relate to the melodramatic descriptions of wiping of the hard disc and reinstallation of programs and must presume that you have not experienced any difficulties.
I look after six PC’s and with some have experienced no problems whatsoever but with others the story is a little different.
For example on one tried a reinstallation of Microsoft Offoce – All went well and I registered the installation
I then reinstalled the other programs a – I run quite a few programs – some small and some large and complex – takes all day but the job isfinished.
I then get the message that MS Office needs registering – remember I had already done this – so I follow the instructions and am informed that the program is already registered and cannot be reregistered – Ok – but I still get the message that MS Office will expire unless I register.
After some four hours on the phone to microsoft, who were very helpful but unable to assist I decide to start again – reformat the disc and start again – everything is Ok but thirty days later I get MS Office needs to be registered or will expire – I follow the instructions and am told it is already registered – back to microsoft – after eight hours – yes eight – on the phone they are unable to resolve the problem – solution is to wipe the disc once again and install a different version of MS Office – OK – but not quite I still cannot get the computer to work correctly and other programs that were working satisfactorily refuse to work at all on upgrading.
After having spent five working days on trying to get this computer set up I have given up – I run the old unpatched programs and will eventually scrap the computer.
This is not a lone example – several other computers will not run certain programs – no matter what I do whilst othe computers run them with absolutely no problem.
I now view any upgrade with dread and expect it to take over a week to apply and that certain programs will lose some functionality for good.
Regards