Q.

About a month ago, I went on newgrounds.com and after a few minutes my computer said it had viruses and then my desktop wallpaper turned blue. In big red letters it said “WARNING”, and some other stuff about how everything I do is saved in my hard drive and can be looked at by forensics and my family and can ruin my life. I found out it was just a scare tactic from a spyware company, but it was still pretty scary. Anyway, my screen went back to normal within a few hours. My friend who told me about newgrounds said it shouldn’t have any viruses because every time she goes on it, nothing happens. So here I am a month later, in the same situation. Should I do something about this or should I wait like last time? Is this more serious than I think? I don’t want to buy anything, especially if I don’t need it. Has this happened to anyone else, and if so, what did you do about it?

A.

First off, if the same thing keeps happening, you need a better Antivirus / Antispyware software, whatever you have is obviously not working well. The problem is, the PC is already infected – realistically (and unfortunately), your safest option is to back up your data (pictures, music, documents, etc..), and reinstall the operating system.

Virus’s and spyware can be thought of like nails in a tire. When you get one, you don’t go back down the road trying to find where it came from, you just get it fixed. When you run over 50 nails, you don’t try to patch the tire, you replace it. Then, you stop going down that road. Virus’s and spyware in Windows is the same deal – sometimes it’s impossible to fix a badly infected OS, it just needs to be wiped out and reinstalled.

Update: Newgrounds.com seems to be an autoblog of sorts, just pulling information about games and reposting it. I doubt the site itself is the problem, more likely some of the games it links to are coming bundled with some type of spyware. Rule #1 – Nothing In Life Is Free, ESPECIALLY ON THE INTERNET – you’ll pay for it one way or another, in this instance, by having your computer infected…..