AOL is a virus. It’s an amoeba. It creeps into a computer as free software and eventually incorporates every useful thing into itself. If you don’t stop it, AOL will destroy you.
I installed AOL on this computer years ago, innocently, as my main Internet browser and email service. I was using dial-up at my parents’ house, on my way to live in the dorms where I would get a much better Internet connection. I was 18 years old. Over time, automatic updates offered new versions of AOL, each a little larger and fancier, with the likes of 5.0, 6.0beta, 6.0, 7.0, with increasing variance of decimal points, eventually up to version 9. I was pleasently surprised when the AOL service offered free spyware protection, a free virus scan, and free computer repair services.
That is, until AOL started presenting me with more offers and pop-ups than I ever could have gotten otherwise, and meanwhile my Windows Task Manager reported that about 40 percent of the programs I had running were AOL related – using over 100K in system resources – and that only includes what I could easily observe.
What was once an innocent program had become a monster. There was no stopping it. Even when I sad “no” to new AOL offers, they found themselves on my computer somehow.
Then the AOL software started loading automatically every time I turned on my computer. I found a way to shut that function off, and for a while it would remain off as long as I never used AOL. But every time I opened the AOL browser the function switched itself back on, to open in full-force with every re-start of the computer, regardless of whether I wanted it or not. The only way to prevent that from happening was to completely quit using the browser, resorting to Internet Explorer – sort of a demon in itself – to check AOL email.
Most programs come with uninstallers, and AOL is no exception, in theory – but AOL’s uninstaller removes 2 files, or about 1/1000 of the total mass of AOL programming on the computer. Meanwhile, opening the “Uninstall AOL” program secretly loads all the other AOL software, so if you check the “processes” section of the Task Manager, several AOL programs are running again. And when they’re running, they resist deletion – I think the program detects when you try to remove any AOL feature and has it automatically re-installed right away.
It’s like a conscious entity that resists its own destruction. Something resembling the computer with a young British girl’s voice in the movie Resident Evil or HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Or maybe like a virus that mutates and becomes stronger every time they think they have a cure, like that new strain of HIV on the news, recently discovered in Seattle, that is resistant to ever retroviral drug. When I started deleting AOL files, AOL programs that lurked in the corners of my computer would ensure their swift return. The “Add or Remove Programs” option in the Windows XP Control Panel now shows no AOL software left on the computer – I activated every “remove program” option the menu offered and quickly had the AOL components erased. But I know AOL is still there, because the program is still present on my Start Menu – and still loads when I select it. Meanwhile, good God – AOL has put itself back on the startup menu, to automatically open the program when the computer re-boots. When I look at the Windows Task manger, and view the processes running, “aolsoftware.exe” is there, using 6,000K of memory. When I manually shut the program down by clicking “end process,” it instantly reappears.
An “AOL system info” window that I’ve never seen before, which has spontanteously emerged on my screen in the midst of this, reports that I’ve loaded and connected with AOL a total of 888 times since it has been on this computer. That’s in 4 years that I’ve had this. Goodbye AOL, you were useful once, but no more, and at this point I’m doubting I’ll miss you.
My first shot at a solution? I downloaded a free program called “CCleaner” (which stands for “crap cleaner”) that allegedly removes nasty programs like AOL, according to some of the 1.5 million websites that open when I google search “uninstall AOL.” It’s a free program, and though anything like this is risky (it could turn out to say it removes junk but actually ads it, sort of like the way AOL works), I’m going to give it a shot. It actually has its own uninstaller, which means it’s willing to help you let it go.
Crap Cleaner also clears other junk that lingers on the comptuer – temporary Internet files, cookies, clipboard files and all the like. So far, this program, along with Spybot – probably the most useful computer program ever invented – seems to be a rarity in the electronic world where a program actually does what it says it will.
Crap Cleaner takes a long time to work. I don’t know why. When I set it to do scan through and delete a few simple files, it took about 10 minutes to run. I canceled before it had a chance to finish, and though it said it cleaned “332MB” of space, the only files it logged as deleting were the Temporary Internet Files. I’m not sure if it’s good or not. But it doesn’t seem to be hurting anything, so I’ll keep it for now.
But as for deleting AOL – no luck. Ccleaner only deletes programs already found on the “add or remove programs” file, a course I already tried to take. Going in manually – which is scary – was my ownly recourse.
There were five AOL related folders in “program files;” they were AOL, AOL 9.0, AOL 9.0a, AOL 9.0b, and a folder called “AOD” which clearly contained only AOL-related stuff. All of the folders successfully dumped to the recyle bin except for AOL 9.0, which, upon delete, said “access is denied.”
But at least the other folders were gone, resulting in a dump that took almost 30 seconds to clear from the recycle bin. The remaining 30MB folder seemed immune to delete, and even upon opening it up and gutting its contents one by one, several of the programs resisted with “access denied.” It was ultimately whittled to one folder called “cool” with several “hidden” files that would not allow themselves to be erased.
On One Hand 
Virginia Tech’s Lessons on Violence
Tags: commentary, politics
Aside from arguments that it’s “too soon” to discuss gun control laws in light of Virginia’s student massacre, I haven’t heard any good reason why there shouldn’t be a call for gun restrictions now that we know the killer used tools only made available after the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 expired in 2004.
Gun proponents across the country are literally up in arms (no pun intended) over the possibility that their guns could be confiscated, as they’re worried, politicians and firearm proponents explain, that personal firearms are necessary for self-defense.
I have no problem with households in rural areas keeping a rifle by the nightstand in case of an armed intruder. I don’t even have a problem with suburban families keeping pistols or even larger collections of guns for protection or novetly purposes. I can see a scenario where a person hears someone breaking in downstairs late at night, and since police are at least several minutes away in an unincorporated county, the gun is a useful a means of self-defense in the bedroom. I can see recreational shooting at firing ranges that involves single-shot pistols and hunting rifles that result in few accidents and a healthy exersising of individual freedom.
But the assault weapons ban only applies to “semi-automatic” weapons, which include grenade launchers, detachable magazines (for rapid re-loading), the ability to hold more than 9 rounds per clip, or a flash-suppressor, which makes the flash of light when a gun is fired at night invisible. The assault weapons ban made many other features illegal, and some of its aspects were superficial; there were restrictions on what kind of scope a gun could have, and for a gun to be considered an “assault weapon,” it needed to have at least 2 of the qualifying features, so any gun with just one of these capabilities was permitted.
The once-banned weapon feature used in the Virginia Tech massacre was a detachable magazine holding 15 rounds, which meant that the shooter only needed to spend a 1-2 seconds for infrequent reloads, and could meanwhile kill up to 15 people with each magazine. If the gun were limited to fewer rounds or required a complicated reloading process, the shooter could have been stopped while re-loading by anyone who dared to tackle him during that generous window.
There is no conceivable scenario in which a gun that fires more than 9 rounds per clip could be used in self-defense. One to three shots are enough to kill any intruder, and if there is a group of intruders who all have guns, there is no way the victim could shoot and kill all of them before being shot him or herself. These assault weapons are allowed on the market simply for the entertainment purposes of gun advocates who like to use them, and the sacrifice is the blood of innocent people and the threat of terrorism to all Americans.
There is also no conceivable scenario in which it is useful for a gun to be powerful enough to hit an airplane from the ground, or to shoot a person from miles away. In the age of terrorism, it seems that every person flying on an airplane or who is a public figure has the right to know these weapons aren’t available to any person as long as he doesn’t happen to have a criminal record. An intruder or threatening attacker would never be dangerous at such distances, so once again, there is no useful self-defence purpose for such weapons. Yet they are all currently legal in the United States.
Gun proponents say that if someone in one of the shot-up classrooms at Virginia Tech had been carrying a concealed weapon, the massacre could have been prevented. Concealed weapons are banned on most college campuses, including Virginia Tech, so this was not a possibility on April 16. But this kind of approach toward self-defence puts the burden of law enforcement on average individuals, who, no matter how well-trained in accuracy and target practice, have no experience handing dire situations with firearms. It also introduces the possibility of the presence of weapons during chaotic situations like athletic events and student-led riots, where the risks of firearm use are far greater than any benefit. Then consider the burden on individuals caught up in bank robberies or gas-station holdups – the far majority of which do not result in injury – whose anxious but quiet situations suddenly become all-out shootouts as soon as one of the bystanders whips out a gun. Meanwhile, for a tragic event that is witnessed by one in tens of thousands people during their lives, individuals would have to bear the burden of carrying a concealed weapon all the time. In all liklihood, even if concealed firearms were permitted or even encouraged on the Virginia Tech campus, so few people would exersize that right that no one who witnessed the massacre would have been carrying a gun. And it’s a far greater infringement of individual liberty to force private citizens to carry weapons out of necessity than it is to ban them entirely, ensuring all are safe.
Police officers are paid through tax dollars to protect people in violent or dangerous situations. If someone is paying taxes for personal safety, he or she have a right to be protected, not stuck with the burden of carrying a weapon needed to protect him or herself from countless other weapons in a society saturated with ridiculously powerful guns.
Luckily, preventing tragedies like this doesn’t require the total gun control that we see in the United Kingdom, which might work for small, dense countries but not for big sweeping areas like the United States. It only requires that the most dangerous millitary-type weapons be banned – weapons with no practical purpose besides entertainment, or rarely, killing dozens of innocent people. It might be an exciting moment when a gun-lover, with no bad intentions whatsoever, first pulls the trigger on a weapon that rips apart a paper target with machine-gun force and can shoot for a long time without a reload. But others have the right to live, and its time to stop letting people be killed for a novelty item.