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Every month thousands of new viruses are released into the world wide web to cause havoc and destruction. Some viruses are sent through AIM as links. If you ever get a link from anyone – even if they are on your buddy list and you know them – make sure they sent the link intentionally. Examples of “suspicious” links look like this:

hey check out this!

how do i look? www.picture.com

check out my pictures

If you ever receive a link from someone and you’re not sure why they sent you think link, dont click it! Oh wait…. you’re already searching for virus removal instructions…. In that case let’s move on to the next step. Before we can get rid of the nasty infection, we should understand a bit about how most AIM viruses work:

How AIM viruses spread

The way most AIM viruses spread are by sending a link to the virus to EVERYONE on your buddy list — so if your friend gets the virus, they send everyone (including you) a link to the virus. If you click it, you get it and send it to everyone on your list. If you’ve passed any level of high school math you should recognize that this will create exponential growth of people who are infected with the virus (for those of you that didn’t quite make it, that means that the virus spreads faster and faster forever — or until it becomes extinct).

So how do you protect yourself from this imminent pending doom? Easy. Don’t click any link you
get unless you know for a fact that the person intended to send you the link. Obviously if you ask someone to send you a link to their myspace page, then the next link they send is real. But if you suddenly get a message with a single link and the person doesn’t reply when you send them a message, somethings not right….

If you suspect that YOU have an AIM virus, you should sign off of your instant messaging program so you don’t infect more people! This can happen even when you aren’t aware of it.

How to get rid of AIM viruses

First of all, un-installing AIM will not get rid of any AIM viruses! Secondly, signing on to a different screen name won’t do anything at all — except infect more people with the virus.

Unfortunately, as with real life illness, there is no universal master-solution to keeping your computer virus free. HOWEVER, there are some really good tricks that work for many people. First of all, visit my page of anti-virus and spyware removal tools. Pick out two or three then download, install, and run them. This might take an hour but it’s well worth the effort and can get rid of normal viruses and spyware as well.

If you need a fast fix I recommend you visit jayloden.com — this guy has created a small tool dedicated to taking out AIM viruses. While it is a handy tool, it doesn’t cover every virus out there. But it’s a good thing to try if you’re pressed for time.

Tips to avoid getting viruses in the future

A friend always told me “you don’t need anti-virus software if you don’t do anything stupid” and today I agree with him completely. Viruses don’t just magically appear on your computer — they need a way to sneek in. Here’s a list of ways that viruses can trick you:

• Email attachments, especially that have file extensions like .exe, can contain viruses. But you knew that already, right?
• Malicious websites can automatically attempt to download a virus to your computer — or they can trick YOU into downloading a virus on to your computer. Don’t click “OK” on every popup you see. Popup windows are becoming trickier every day with fake “close” buttons and images that look like other things on your computer.
• If you have a virus on your computer, it may give you popup warnings that your computer may be infected and you should click on the message to fix it. Never believe a popup even if it says it’s on your side.
• Get a better internet browser like Mozilla Firefox to replace Internet Explorer.
• Finally, don’t click links in AIM or other instant messaging windows unless you know exactly where the link goes before you click it. The same goes for links in emails and on sites like myspace.

*This article is unfinished and will be updated in the coming days*