Solves all those nasty problems.
Posted on 11/16/2004 10:04:11 AM PST by Dustoff45
Do Not open the Worst Christmas Present ever. You will begin to receive, via IE, some of the worse adware I have ever seen, very intrusive. - Looks like Browser hijacking stuff.
If you have already gone there, look for a little puppy dog down by your clock time, and know that you are badly affected.
Time for SpyBot and other adware removers.
I didn't get it from therer but you aren't kidding. That stuff was horrible. I ended up with something like 6 separate seachbars. It inserted a bunch of things into my favorites and force fed me popups all day long.
Solves all those nasty problems.
I got something similiar a few months ago and moved to Firefox.`
Ok, Linux isn't the solution to all of life's woes. Educating users is. If he doesn't know to disable things like Java, ActiveX scripting, etc., then he wouldn't know about turning off unnecessary services like ssh that RH/FC install and turn on by default. Window's can be safe as long as you take the proper precautions, and Linux can be just as unsafe if used by an inexperience user.
I switched to Firefox recently and wasn't effected when I opened that Christmas stories crap.
Firefox is a great little browser.
While that is correct, Linux does not allow adware at this time. The issues you discussed related to security, as opposed to privacy.
Ok, so you'd have him trade in his security for privacy. I'm talking the big picture here. No adware, in exchange for someone taking control of your machine by bruteforcing your sshd. Not much of an improvement...
Check out: "Spybot": http://www.safer-networking.org/en/home/index.html
They seem to have stopped supporting / updating the old version, but have a new updated (still freeware) build of Spybot you can download.
Some 'Puter Geek I talked to some time ago reccomended running both Ad Aware http://www.lavasoft.de/ and SpyBot, as one picks up what the other is apt to miss... generally.
Seems to work for me.
Spybot is a little more complicated; read the tutorial before running it, or you can delete some "good" stuff along with the "bad" adware.
Does this "Christmas" file come as an attachment in E-Mail, a popup on a browser window, or what? Does it have a file extension like *.exe ?
I run Netscape, so don't know if I'm vunerable or not.
Have sent out an e-mail "heads up" to some of my contacts to alert them to it.
Please keep us posted!
UJ
I just visited the website (humor), linked in the post.
Then noticed a bunch of activity, opened up the processes and found several executables driving the CPU toward 100%
Using both Spybot and Adaware to remove well over 200 entries.
This PC was clean this morning.
I foolishly had opened IE to visit FreeRepublic. I am back to FireFox by Mozilla.
Spybot link.
I keep IE on board ONLY because of the occasional website that requires it specifically - and then only on rare occasions.
Have MS mail too, but avoid it like the plague.
Currently can only send E-mail via my Netscape account; can recieve on that or my ISP "Roadrunner" Cable connection, but RR won't accept any of my SMTP for some reason;
Been hours on the phone with TS and going over all the settings, firewall etc.. - can't seem to find the problem.
I used to like EUDORA, which we are told is essentially virus proof - but I cant get it to send or pick up any e-mail for some time now.
Tried Thunderbird (Mozilla) - no go with that either.
Netscape Communicator is pretty schitzie, but at least it sort of works most of the time.
At least RR provides a pretty decent FW/AV at the ISP level, which keeps attacks to a minimum - and so far our resident redundant security system has kept us pretty well covered.
The buggers keep coming up with new malware all the time, though, dang 'em.
Link to Spybot 1.3
http://beam.to/spybotsd
Thank you.
(smile)
Thank you for warning me. I hate spyware.
Actually, I'm a computer scientist and I do use Linux on a daily basis. Just about every week, I see attempts by script kiddies using ssh bruteforcing program in my logs. You just made my point by saying that most people aren't computer savvy. As I pointed out above, someone who isn't savvy enough to protect themselves against spyware in Windows probably wouldn't know to secure services on a Linux box and choose a proper, secure password to prevent against someone completely taking over their machine.
Adware warning
I have Spybot search and destroy and AdAware SE and I haven't had any problems.
Haven't seen any little puppy dog except my own, LOL.
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