Spybots And Adware

[ubergnome]

For those who've had similar problems...

I've *mostly* resolved this issue by installing Ad Aware, Spybot Search and Destroy, and Spyware Blaster. All 3 together are a good combo as they all work a little differently.

After running them a couple of times and getting into their more advanced features *carefully.* All but one adware/spyware program have been vanquished.

All the problems had made their way onto the office PC before I came on board here. For some reason they just seemed to get in high gear when I came to this our favorite website.

THEN I also dl'd updates for Firewall and Virusscan, then checked all their settings to make sure everything was filtered. This seems to have dun the trick. Now all I get is one sneaky pop up telling me to go to their site for a microsoft patch. No more hijacked browsers here.

Interesting what is going on in the dark depths of cyber-space, and a little unnerving.

[fatter than harry]

So you don't need my mum's phone number?

[stumonster]

well done ubergnome... though I am interested to know which one you still have..

can you give any description of it.. or tell us what process name it has?

I have not used spyware blaster, but adaware and spybot are totally recommended.

a word of warning though not all these programs that have rushed to the market are benign... some even plant their own bit of spyware

before using any of the software do some search s on the internet and see if you can find some reliable sources of info on it

[gazsonic]

Hi, I need to reply to this because you probably know that spyware and adware can eat up your bandwidth as well as annoy you!

something we dont really need anywhere in the world.

I use McAffee internet security.

Its a full suite of internet security tools in one package.

Its a walk through easy set up and it protects against everything i've ever encountered.

I like to check through my settings every now and then.

the program updates itself automatically from the internet.

Also similarly rated is norton internet security suite.

You may find these programs for the equivalent of £45 or 3000baht or you may find them cheaper still at Pantip.

I highly recommend.

I hope this helps!

[Webby]

I suggest you also give your registry the once over buy the guys at the

HijackThis Support

If you're interested you can download HijackThis from here

WARNING do not delete any items without consulting the guys at the HijackThis forum.

------------------------------------

One final thing from me, download TrojanHunter you can have a free 30 day trial version to check out those nasties that the other programs miss.

Cheers

[translator]

One sure way to find out who is gathering information to bounce pop adds and spywarez at your box

The site is called gemal.dk

You may think sites that claim by statement "this is all we can see of your box", rubbish claims.....gemal.dk shows everything about your box and your browser conditions when surfing.

Test just how much information to a webpage might be revealed, giving your personal or browser habits, even your credit card info can be claimed and used.

You can spend two minutes at a site claiming your anon, go to gemal and read your box info for a good 30 minutes.

The site is well known by many linux users to check on conditions for surfing. it also accomodates windows users, you will be amazed at your details shown.

claims by sites giving anonymous proxy software, If you use one ***go check out gemal site***

http://gemal.dk/browserspy/

Compare linux to windows and be amazed at the difference........

[translator]

TrojanHunter .........its a good tool for keeping loose hackers at bay. its got a good update record, if your in any doubt as to the state of your machine you can download it and find out if you really need to format your drive(s).

If trojanhunter can clean it or them off for you. it becomes a simple matter to increase your firewall before you connect again..

Its a thirty day trial package or purchase after the period....

McAffee is worthless as a firetool against a good hacker placing trojans via backdoor

Norton is limited if not patched weekly against exploits

ZoneAlarm firewall places your box in stealth mode (not reachable) once auto setup has completed. it costs or a free limited firewall is there to download. it has amazing high level security blockage.

[george]

Here is some more tools to keep spyware and potential hackers out of your computer:

http://www.tomcoyote.com/hjt/ free utility to examine your computer and start getting rid of all that spyware. BHO's are everywhere now. Everybody and their toolbar apps.

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/tcpview.shtml another freebie to examine port connections on your pc. Very handy.

[grrr]

I solved this problem by finally ditching windows and installing Gentoo Linux on my laptop...and there will be no going back!

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Billy Gates is sure to miss you.

[ubergnome]

Amazing how much of my work time this issue is eating up, and frustrating.

We all have better things to do than spending time and bandwidth defending our little corners of cyberspace against invaders.

At the tail end of my holiday the past few days I was just informed that I've been sending infected file attachments to collaborators, And popups are still getting in - and this is after all the updating, disinfecting etc...

Picked up Norton security suite at Pantip on the way thru Bkok, but now I'm sure it's about as good as McAfee was.

It's possible I could just switch everything to my Mac and junk the PC, tho don't really want to do that. So will try the above advice, but am also seriously considering the migration to Linux.

Question tho - this would mean all our Windoze apps would be useless, right?

Thanks all for your comments.