What is the average persons experience?

Being involved in the computer and Internet industry for many years I sometimes forget and so do probably many of you, what the average persons user experience is like with their computer.  This point was driven home to me again this weekend.  For the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashonah, we went out to relatives for dinner both Friday night and Saturday night (Happy and Healthy New Year to all of those out there that celebrate the holiday).  On Friday night we went down to my cousin Jeri and her husband Danny's place in Bay Harbor.  I tried to get on Danny's laptop to show my uncle something and was amazed at the amount of virus warnings, spyware, expired security software and how damn near impossible it was to use this machine.  When I asked Danny he didn't know how this stuff got so out of hand but was ready to buy another computer. I asked him to let me give it a try.  First thing I did was remove the programs generating pop ups for expired software.  The biggest offender was a product called Virus Burst.  I am not familiar with this product, but it is in my opinion, spyware itself with the amount of garbage it throws up on the screen and the constant reminders and such.  Then he had Norton which was flashing in a endless loop that it had found spyware and viruses but could not remove them, just quarantine.  Then there was a shareware spyware program, plus the garden variety odd spyware an viruses on the computer.  I downloaded Windows OneCare and deleted everything else.  I then ran a full system scan and cleaned or quarantined most everything up.  Finally, after almost 2 hours it was running fairly well. If I did not come by and clean this up, the computer was hosed.  How many computers out there are hosed without someone like me to come by and clean it up.  How many average users out there are forced to use their computer like this?

My answer came the next night at my sister-in-laws house.  Our niece from Colorado was in town and wanted to show her My Space page.  She loaded up their machine and after a bunch of minutes asked her Aunt why the machine was so slow.  I thought it was a dial up connection, but it was in fact a cable modem.  I had a look and sure enough it was not the connection but the fact that the CPU was pegged running so many garbage programs.  Again, some good housekeeping put this right.  Is this the average?  Does everyone depend on the family computer geek to come over and make it right?  This is why we need to make security easier.  This is why we have to put automated defenses in place that will allow every computer user to have a better experience.  We sometimes forget how the things we take for granted are so complicated for those who don't spend their lives in IT.  Everyone should go to a relative or friends house every once in a while for a dose of reality!