Another Smoking Story...

Saturday evenings are always pleasant. The thought that next day is Sunday brings an air of freshness to the mind. Sitting before my computer after my Saturday dinner I was thinking of some strange happenings this week. I would like to share an incident that troubled me this week.

It was Thursday morning. My mind was at peace and at an elated state after sending the report on time, after a long struggle to get my schedule on time. With this thought I went to the nearby snacks bar to have sweet lime juice which I used to have normally to keep the ulcer problem at bay. When I was thinking about the day’s work after placing the order, there came five boys, their age ranging from 10 to 17. From their look I can make sure that they are not the boys who work somewhere or so. They came and ordered tea, the first astonishment for me. At the age of 10 a boy comes to a snacks bar and orders tea in this early morning. What are their parents doing at home even without making a tea for them? The worst is to follow, a guy from the group asked for a cigarette. Totally relieved of my thought process, shocked I looked at the boy who asked for it and then at the shop owner. The shop owner replied that he can’t sell cigarettes to boys and this guy had a reply for that also. “I am not a small kid and I am in the first year of Polytechnic” was the reply. Don’t know what prompted the shop owner to say that, but he denied cigarette saying that he didn’t have the brand which the guy was asking. At this, he asked another boy who was with him to go to a petty shop near by and purchase it. My thought process was into many things. When the petty shop owner sells the cigarette to the boy who had went to purchase it, is it not illegal. Selling cigarette to minors is illegal.

Got curious and asked the guy who wanted the cigarette about his age. He said he is 17. Even at the age of 17 one is not entitled to smoke is what our law says and I mentioned this to him. He blushed and I asked him what pleasure he derives by smoking. Again a blushing smile. I asked him whether he had been to the Adayar Cancer Hospital and saw the Cancer patients. To my shock he said, he had been there for 5 years continuously when his mother was taking treatment for cancer. I asked him to visit the mouth cancer division and meet people who got cancer because of smoking in the same Adayar Cancer Institute when he gets time. I explained him something about cancer and the dangers of smoking. I didn’t ask him to stop smoking. This young generation is supposed to go strong when we restrict them on something and also have developed the habit of reverting back with questions. So I stopped myself here and started back to my office. This kept on itching in my mind the whole day.

Spywares and anti-spyware Software

One fine day I was shocked when I saw an adult site opening up automatically when I opened my browser. I was totally perplexed when they reappeared after me setting the browser properties to blank and don’t know the reason and started my research on it. This made me to learn about spywares. And now I am relaxed on knowing that it was the spywares, the reason for the automatic opening of the adult website. I dug myself more into the study of spywares and got to know more about it. As nature goes I found the solution to spywares also and got to research about some branded anti-spyware software.

To my astonishment I learned that spyware may get installed by itself on my computer even without my knowledge and can cause lot of malfunctioning of my computer apart from loading advertisement websites automatically. It seems spywares can collect details like keyword usage pattern, website browsing pattern, personal information and even sensitive information at items like credit card details and all. Though these data are collected for the purpose of advertisements through adwares, I have the apprehensions that these data can be misused for any serious offences also. Once I even noticed some new items on my browser toolbar which I have never installed and some research revealed that they are because of spywares. To add to my woes I was not able to remove those extra tools in the browser toolbar.

All these woes and experience made me to look out for anti-spyware software a perfect one to protect my computer and my data from the spywares. I was searching for one and came across products from Symantec, AVG and even one from Microsoft itself. I started to use these anti-spyware software in an attempt to find the best for my computer. Microsoft’ and AVG provides free anti-spyware software, but with Symantec it not so and so I tried the trial version. I tried with lot of probabilities. After installing the anti-spyware software from various brands I tried to open certain websites which used to install spyware and checked whether it blocked the installation or not. At the end of the day after many such tests on various brand products I came to a decision that AVG is the best and installed the anti-spyware software which comes along with AVG anti-virus software. As advised I also followed the habit of updating the anti-spyware software for any addition to the database with any new spywares and this helps me to keep the spyware at bay from my computer.

Yes, now one can sense the presence of a spyware and sure to get irritated by its presence in the computer and so want to remove it. Very much like anti-virus software there is anti-spyware software available in the market to keep the spywares away from one’s computers. The best of the anti-spyware software is “Windows Defender”. Windows Defender is free software which comes packed along with Windows Vista and can be downloaded freely for Windows XP. This is a very effective anti-spyware software and is sure to keep a computer out of the troubles of a spyware. Though other companies like Symantec, MacAfee and other industry leaders have their own anti-spyware products in this list Windows Defender is rated as the best.