Posted on 09/21/2003 2:59:04 PM PDT by BJungNan
Drudge Site Ripe with Computer Slowing Spyware
At the suggestion of another Freeper, I installed spyware that removes tracking programs loaded on my computer that I was told were slowing it down. I had mentioned that my computer seemed to be getting slower and slower.
Sure enough, once the little spy buggers were cleared out of my computer, the darn thing sped up to an acceptable speed – even for the dial-up connection that I use. But then it happened again.
I decided to have a look into the matter.
I cleared all the spyware again – twice to be sure I got it all - and then went on line to the home page that I use, gogov.com. I let the page fully load, then went off line and ran the spyware program again. Nothing. No spyware planted on my computer.
I signed on again and using my home page as a jumping off point, I went to one of the sites I regularly visit, eBay. I let that page load fully. Then I signed off and ran the spyware program. Nothing. No spyware loaded on my computer.
Using this same process, I visited several other sites: FreeRepublic, then shut down, nothing. A couple of company web pages, nothing. Then I visited The Drudge Report. Wow!
There was no need to shut down and run the spyware program before I knew there was a problem. I signed on – got the usual annoying pop up from Drudge – and then when I tried to go back to my home page it was slow, slow, slow. I shut down and ran the spyware.
Five spyware programs had been loaded on to my computer.
To test this, I repeated the process several times and even checked my home page site a couple of times to make sure it was not the culprit. Sure enough, Drudge was dropping spyware programs on my computer at varying rates every time I signed on to his site - it seemed to vary between 3 and 7 detected spyware programs loaded from The Drudge Report.
On the last trip to Drudge, I started to do some surfing after leaving his site. My online mail service was slow. Ebay was slow. FreeRepublic was slow. My computer was slower – agonizingly so.
One last time I cleared the spyware using the spyware program and went about surfing – I did this while the connection was still open. I had not signed off. I wanted to make sure it was not just a slow connection I had gotten. It was not. Everything speeded up quite noticeably.
Needless to say, I don’t visit Drudge. Perhaps those of you lucky to have DSL connections won’t notice the slowing. But for anyone with a dial-up connection, I have two recommendations. First, get a spyware removal program. I use Ad Aware by Lavasoft, a free download. Second, avoid Drudge and his computer slowing spyware ridden site.
I didn't even know Drudge had popups until I heard someone mention it.
Yes, create a bogus file with that name in your System32 directory... the program is going to overwrite it anyways.
Credit- Martin Fierro
Ah, to be young (old ?) and naive again. You are, of course, mistaken in that bold statement.
Lots of stuff gets installed, if you are not careful.
LVM
A popup blocker is of much help with most of the critters. AdAware cleans them up nicely however.
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