Why would someone give something away for free? Think about it; what benefit does it serve the person or organization giving the item away? The giver has to be getting something in return or they wouldn’t waste their resources.
I made a decision to offer free diagnostics at my company because I know the risk-reward is stacked in my favor. Most people who come in for a diagnostic have my company perform the work. So the little bit of time the free service takes is paid back with our standard rate.
Free isn’t necessarily a good thing when it comes to computer software. Believe it or not I receive a fair number of complaints from customers telling me we removed a legitimate piece of software even though it was a hoax.
One of my favorite scams promises a free utility to diagnose slow running computers. Once installed, it slows the computer to a halt then pops up with a message telling the user to spend $59.00 to speed up the computer. Purchasing the software disables the portion of software that slows the computer.
Many times the utilities advertised as free are viruses. Usually the garbage applications start with the prefix “PC” or have the words “speed” or “helper” somewhere in the name. Many times the software comes bundled with other utilities. These utilities function as a virus and can do harm.
Back to my original question for a minute. How do these companies benefit? It costs money to own a place on the net and advertise; so any company that gives something away must receive a reward. And these companies do get rewarded quite nicely.
The lesser of two evils is like the example I gave above. The utility installs onto PC and provides a VERY obtuse count of potential viruses and threats (that’s the free part). It later hijacks the computer while it requests a monetary payout to make the repairs. Most of the time these can simply be removed.
On the other hand, the nasty utilities offered for free are truly viruses. Conduit is one of the bigger ones that’s advertised as a helper. Conduit reroutes internet traffic through its channels and then monitors what the user is doing with their computer. Users complain of popups while surfing the web or while they’re on sites they know don’t advertise this way.
Conduit and applications like it are truly malicious because they can steal data. In my business we call this type of virus a ‘data miner’ because they look for things related to money, credit cards and social security numbers. Somehow they’re advertised as helper software and come bundled with other legitimate applications which adds to their legitimacy.
Preventing this stuff from getting on a PC in the first place can be easy depending on how and who uses the computer. Kids should be reminded not to willy-nilly click on every link on a website. The key to keeping this stuff off a computer is to read and understand every end user license agreement so you know what you’re clicking and installing. If it doesn’t look good then don’t install it.
Some advice to those running a business from their computers is to segregate business and personal use on two separate machines. If the personal machine gets loaded with this stuff then it’s a simple matter of removing the viruses. However, if the business machine becomes contaminated then it could mean a day without and the potential for lawsuits depending on your business type.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can call him at (978) 919-8059 or visit www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)