Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7222
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | I'm just posting this as a warning. The use of ad ware, and spyware is at epidemic proportions. If you are not running at least the latest version of Adaware or some other product, you will be sorry. Even if you are, you may get infected anyway. Also, check for updates of your Spyware, Virus, and Windows software on a weekly basis. I have been talking with collegues and this garbage is crippling computers left and right. It seems everyone I know has a computer that is basically down, and will have to be formatted to use again. If you are experiencing "slowness" of things on your PC, or any out of oridinary behavior, it could very well be there are programs on your PC sending your private information out, collecting information about you, and bringing ads to your browser (which is actually the least of the trouble at this point).
I have a computer that is primarily used for household stuff like bills or work. No real surfing or anything. I have been working for days to remove 100's of the programs and spyware mouse droplets. I am using the Free "Adaware" mantioned above but also, AOL's Spyware software, PestPatrol, Spybot, Regcleaner and Spyhunter, along with old fashioned booting from another disk and editing the registry and deleting files. This stuff is worse than a virus. Each of the above programs is able to remove different versions of different spyware, but the stuff is coming online so fast, they just can't keep up. There are nearly 900 new virus's let out on the net each month, there must be at least double that number of spyware variants.
Be warned. Be safe.
How does this get on your PC.... MICROSOFT IS CRAP!!! That's how. There are vulnerabilities that are being exploited as fast as they can patch the holes... adn the holes are big a gaping.
Resources:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/06/22/spyware.qa.ap/
Home of Adaware Remover
>http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
Note the number of Components that are Searched For on this list.
http://www.anti-spyware-review.toptenreviews.com/
http://www.pchell.com/support/spyware.shtml
http://www.spywareremoversreview.com/
Good resources and good sofware, but nor perfect:
http://www.pestpatrol.com/
For an alternative to MacAfee and Symantec virus protection, I highly recommend F-Secure.
http://www.datafellows.com
Spy Sweeper
I have just finished testing this software that was recommended in one of the references above. I'd say it's a miracle worker. It searches for over 27000 signatures and on the first sweep it found 588 references to 22 pieces of Spyware. Before I had a chance to reboot when it was done, it found 2 more going active and killed them. After reboot the system was clean. As this program found at least 300 more references than any of the other software programs found, I ran the other spy protectors again just to see, and they came up empty. This SPy Sweeper from WebRoot is a keeper at least for now, 29.95 well spent.
http://www.webroot.com/ |
SpyWare
