Trojans, not the fun kind

Things like this make me want to kick the responsible people in sensitive places:

Because there's nothing less suspicious than a Windows security alert opening on your Mac. In a browser window. That tries to download something if you click anywhere within. Yeah. I almost fell for that one. Close call.

Who falls for this? Sadly, lots of people. People who you'd think would know better. Otherwise smart people you might share an apartment with. People who might come to you after and beg you to clean up their mess.

Grr.

I'm actually about to have my friend drop off his laptop because his machine blue screened after removing this one. He got it because he let the free trial of the Anti-virus and spyware software I installed for him lapse because "he didn't have the money".

While a few Mac viruses exist, you have to be pretty fucking stupid to get them - i.e. the people who got a trojan from installing the pirated copy of iLife. People bitch because you have to pay more for a Mac. Shit like this is why I'm glad I did.

Is your friend completely unfamiliar with the Internet? There are free anti-virus programs everywhere.

Protecting a PC from viruses and spyware really isn't difficult.

So you're saying I shouldn't cruise Russian sites for software cracks?

I've recently run it to problems with the free AV stuff out there, especially AVG. I've had it disabled on a couple of machines by some particularly nasty spyware.