Today was another one of those frustrating learning days that cost me a lot of time trying to remove malicious software. I am still don’t know how it got onto my computer.  It was an annoying and frustrating problem that I should never have had in the first place. 

When I posted my bog entry this morning, I noticed that links were showing up that I had not placed in the text of my blog.  The fact that they were links to scam business opportunities would have been funny since the posting was 8th in a series of articles about the danger of scam business opportunities, but it wasn’t funny because I was so aggravated to see them there.

I had not given anyone permission to put ad links on my Website and I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of them.  The good news is that I finally figured out that they were coming from an app called Text-Enhancer.com. I immediately searched the Web to find out how to remove the problem – and managed to do exactly that –  I think!

This is a sneaky, annoying app that piggy-backs on free downloads and jumps into your system without your being aware of it – until the links start showing up in anything that you post.

The lesson learned (or I should say relearned) is that when you are downloading any kind of free software, be sure the you check (or un-check), as needed, all the boxes that are “giving” you other free apps – which 99% of the time you will not want on your computer.  Apparently, these kinds of programs fit in a category called malware.

Check out this article that will help you deal with malicious software (https://www.bestvpn.com/malware-removal-and-protection/). It includes a lot of good information and several sources of malware removal programs that gave clear instructions on how to remove it – so now, all is well – I hope.

Just another day of “learning” that I wish I could have jumped over. But, learning is always a good thing, right?

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