I'm going to avoid surfing the web using IE from now on. A half an hour ago, I hit up (using IE) the 'Miss Universe' website to gawk a bit at the contestants and to revel in being an unreconstructed male chauvnist pig, if only for a time. Lo and behold, my machine slows down to a crawl, a little 'software being installed' icon pops up in the tray for a few seconds, and despite my frantic efforts to the contrary a dialog box pops up.

"Virtual Bouncer is now installed, and it will keep your computer safe from nefarious spyware, hax0rs, and other malcontents. Muahahahaha! Please click a button to tell us what to do next:
[click here to be assaulted by goats]
[click here to be accosted by other barnyard animals]
[clicking here won't do anything but involve even more randy members of the animal kingdom in your life]".

Then the fun began. The Windows File Protection thingie pops up, telling me that I'm being anally violated with an enraged rabies-infected porcupine. Metaphorically speaking. Virtual Bouncer didn't really want to be uninstalled. It berated me for trying to tell it to go away - "Turning this program off is not wise unless you know what you're doing - the hax0rs will get you", it told me. And kept running, despite my explicit (and earthy) demands to the contrary. On reboot, after I thought I'd gotten it uninstalled, it managed to pull a Jesus and resurrect itself. How, I don't know. It didn't even wait for the third day.

Downloading Ad-Aware6 and runing it a couple of times seems to have nuked the little fucker. Maybe. I only wish the creators of this little wonder-program could get the same treatment.

The lesson is, don't use IE. Every evil fucker out there with a spyware program to disseminate has you in their sights if you do. IE is the majority platform, it runs activex, it can install system related shit, and is generally a massive liability. It's a good browser - but Mozilla and co. are better, at least for me, and I don't have to worry about getting anally violated by sneaky spyware that installs itself without even asking me while using Phoenix.