I've been offline most of last week due to my testbox pretty much exploding, and am currently stuck with using dialup to get online.

And what a horrendous experience it is. It's sort of strange to think we were all stuck using this not so long ago, and it's easy to forget how infuriating a PC hijack would be if still on dialup. I've tested pretty much every kind of PC hijack imaginable, and even in the worst case on broadband, I was still able to browse the Net. Sure, the browser itself would usually take about five minutes to open up due to all the garbage installed, but once running, you could view web pages in a fairly functional fashion (well, apart from the occasional redirect to a gambling website or whatever).

Hand someone the same situation while on dialup, however, and I don't think they'd have much of a choice but to clean up. A few browser redirects and maybe an additional popunder browser / window while using broadband isn't generally going to make much of a difference to a DSL user, but apply the same scenario to someone on a dialup modem (where every last kb counts) and you're not going to get very far.

Now, I do know people who have all sorts of junk on their computer, but don't bother to get their PCs cleaned out because, in their own words, "I can still get online" thanks to their broadband.

Maybe we should stick them back on dialup for a week....