Sweet Jesus -Need help with Spyware!
 

My computer has a mind of it's own!
I've got pop -up ads telling me I've got "spyware".
I've got a browser hijacker that reroutes my homepage and takes me to about:blank some bull***** webpage search engine... and now I've got something downloaded that changed my desktop to a spyware removal ad. Also, when I go to a popular search engine (yahoo/MSN, it automatically redirects me to the same BULL***** home page. I can't seem to get rid of this browswer hijacker!!!!! Now to top it all off, I've got little XP bubles popping up out of my program bar telling me I've got spyware.

I swear to you all here and now if I E V E R get my hands on one of these people I will shift the orentation of their cheekbones with the backstrap of my sig 228.

I cannot believe people would randomly disrupt other peoples lives simply to pop up an ad for the new Motorola razor.

The good news:
I've downloaded several spyware programs. Namely adWare SE and Spybot Search and Destroy. They are both freeware programs and I have had limited success with them. The adWare continuely finds 20 or so registry keys and files it thinks are infected. But when I attepmt to delete my selection it say it cannot delete some of them without a reboot. When I reboot, nothing happens and I can run the program again to the same effect. Also, something goofely is going on with my norton. The program will not open itself. When I click on the program icon, I get an hour glass for a second or two then nothing. It just won't open!

AKKK!

I am so frustrated!

If any of you are computer savy and think you can lend a hand I would greatly appreciate it!

Microsoft has a beta spyware program for free download. I found it worked waaaay better than spybot & noadware.

You got to stop going to those shady porn sites. ;)

Porn sites... Porn sites??? What Porn sites? I don't look at Porn!

How would I get to the Microsoft software?

its called format c:\ :D

I keep a lot of stuff on a second HD in the computer, and I keep it locked and firewalled. Never have a problem with that one. The one that has windows and AOL and IE, if it gets hacked too much then I just format and install everything back off the other hard drive. Takes me little more than an hour to do everything.

I wipe my hd clean every few months anyway...keeps the hackers at bay.

Sounds like you might have the CoolWebSearch exploit. A google should find a program to fix it. If not, I'll grab it and stage it for you.

Sebring77 was probably going to suggest this, but you really just need a Mac. ;)

Along with AdAware and SpyBot, I like to use HiJack-This. It scans your registry for suspect items and lists them in a manner that allows you to remove the Registry entries.

You really need to understand your Registry before you go messing around with this one!

p.s. Blue, that was low! :D

Randy

Had to be said.SmileWavy

Leland,

Even with the adaware you need to update its program every week or so to include the latest scripts. Run it daily and it helps, being careful which sites you visit helps as well.

Let us know if you need any more help, as this can be a bear. Do you know how to reset your home page?

JoeA

Unless its a work computer that requires you run IE download Mozilla

I use Trend-Micro pc-cillin in addition to the MS antispyware beta. You'll find MS's antispyware somewhere on their vast website. Its a free download.

LeRoux

Sometimes the easiest fix is /format C:


Really isn't that bad and should be done occasionally to get that old horse running swiftly again.

You know, when I first saw this, my reflex reaction was "Oh no, not another religion thread!" (whew)

But on-topic, I used to use Windows. I have no clue what kind of crud was running that I couldn't keep track of. My system just ran more and more slowly until I finally reinstalled Windows again. Then one time, I said "f--- it. I'm not installing the same f---ed up OS one more time, just so I can do it again." And I installed Suse, and haven't looked back.

There is freedom.

Dan

That's exactly what I ended up doing. I was hijacked by that about:blank and couldn't get rid of it. I backed up all my personal files and wiped the disk clean. Had to reinstall everything, but none of the freeware was working.

I have an article that says spyware may dig into a few different places.. that you have to remome all the brothers together or the remaining will fuly replicate itself. If you want a scan do an e-mail.

We had the same problems a few months ago only our old A@@ computer just died. We tried everything. My wife's IT person told us it was the most f'ed computer he had seen. We have a new DEll now and we run our spy software weekly and I can't visit porn anymore.:(

I have tried most if not all the stuff mentioned above. The only thing that really worked and worked well is the stuff that Road Runner offers for free (EZ Armor). If you have and use road runner, go to the user manager section of their home page and down load it for free. It adds a firewall as well as spyware and virus protections. I dumped my Nortons in favor of this and eliminated 98% of all the software conflicts too.

I downloaded it and found out it didn't do jack! Every night it would do a 40 minute scan with zero spyware found. I downloaded Spybot and ran a scan and it found about 20 hidden items. It seems they need to work on the Beta version more. It never removed any spyware from my PC the entire time I used it.

You think instead of spending time and resources on a piece of software that'll fix problems with the OS that they'd just go and fix the OS.

hmmm, maybe an indication of how broken it really is.