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Greetings my fellow Geeks, loyal readers, and those of you who just happened upon the column by accident!  The tankards of champagne were flowing once again this week at Geek Headquarters, as the entire It’s Geek to Me research team gathered together to celebrate the third anniversary of this humble column.  Yes, believe it or not, we’ve been publishing now for a full three years.  This is, in fact, issue number 157. 

As I think back on the dozens and dozens of questions I’ve answered, and the thousands of e-mails that I’ve received but was not able to use in the column, one thought keeps recurring to me:  How in the world does the average person out there who is not a geek or a computer scientist possibly manage to keep their PC running properly, given the number of problems that pop up daily with the current available operating systems from a certain company that I won’t name, other than to say “Thanks, Bill”? I mean, from what I can tell based on the e-mail that I receive daily, most computers out there are a vast wasteland of software throwing out obscure error messages from malware-riddled hard drives.  And even when things are working to the point the system is usable, there is a constant barrage of spam, phishing attempts, identity thieves, and various other internet schemes all conspiring against YOU, the end user.  Yes Geeks and Geekettes, this is the unfortunate cyber world in which we do our computing, and it is for these very reasons that this column exists.  As long as you continue to send in your questions, the crack staff here at It’s Geek To Me will continue to seek solutions.  Speaking of which….

Q: I have a Gateway XP and somehow the proxy server is checked each time I boot up.  I have to physically go into the Internet options to uncheck the proxy server.  I use Cox Internet service and they do not use a proxy server.  Tech support is no help, apparently no one has a clue why this happens.  I’m really tired of searching for solutions.  What can I do to find out why this happens?  Thank you in advance for any help you can give me. 

– Dottie R.
Crestview, Fla

Dottie, you wrote to me with a very similar question last year, which I used in the column that published on May 24th, 2009.  I told you then that I believe your computer may have some sort of malware on it that is redirecting your internet traffic and either monitoring your system, of keeping it set up to be remotely controlled.  The Geekish term for this is a “bot” which is basically a zombified computer that can be remotely controlled along with hundreds or thousands of other bots into a vast network, or “botnet”.  There are few, if any, legitimate uses for a botnet, but they can be used for lots of bad stuff, such as sending spam, or performing denial-of-service attacks that can bring websites down.  If you can’t find any malware infestation yourself, and barring any other rational explanation for a proxy server “magically” re-implementing itself every time you reboot, I suggest you either have a professional look at your computer, or simply wipe the hard drive and reload Windows from scratch.  If you continue using your system as it is, you may be putting yourself at risk.