Working in an office all day, connected to an open network I need to be very protective of my computer. I don’t look at those sites I shouldn’t be looking at, I don’t download music, and I have an adware and virus protection plan I stick to religiously. Each Monday upon startup, while I’m downloading my weekend mail and listening to the weekend dramas of my collegues I update my virus definitions and proceed to scan every inch of my computer for invading viruses.

If I’ve made it through the working week I deserve a treat, so I drag my best friend out of her office and off we go to this quaint sushi bar down the street. Fire, dancing and fantastic sushi made in front of my eyes is just enough to make me forget the work piling up back at the office.

Anyway by the time I pulled myself out of sushi mode, up the stairs, and back to the office my weekly spyware scan was complete, and was congratulating me on having a “spyware and adware free computer.”

Working on the net all day every day, competent adware protection software is important. I’m always skeptical when collegues offer me a new, free adware software. So for the last 2 months I’ve been using not just one adware protection program, but the 2 best anti-adware software packages I could find…….. everything was going great until……….

It was Friday morning, just one more day till the weekend, the boss couldn’t keep quiet about this weekends’ date, blonde, funny, the complete package…………..

Anyway, I was listening with amusement to the excited rantings while my inbox filled with this mornings messages, and suddenly everything went blue……. Not just my screen, but everyone on the network……….. Everything was down, no work today………………

Monday morning came around and the boss wasn’t happy, he missed his date trying to sort out the network, no date and no second chance……..

I was in the bad books, turns out one of the “Adware Protection” software programs I had downloaded had secretly filled mine, and every computer on the network with spyware….. Not Good At All!

A weekend without sales, without a date, and more than enough stress, all because of my one mistake…….. Needless to say I am no longer in charge of spyware and adware protection at the office. The techies who had to spend the weekend fixing my mistake have now installed a new adware program on my computer, one program to take care of the lot, I don’t touch it, I don’t change any settings, and I’m happy with that…..

Finally the boss has calmed down and everything’s under control again, luckily I’ve got a great boss that can see the funny side of things ……. and I still have a job! A lesson learned is the way I’m looking at the whole situation.

My advice to anyone working online is be aware of what you are downloading to your computer, sometimes software that should be protecting is actually infecting!

You can find the Adware Protecter we now use at http://www.realtimesolutions.info