DESPERATE TO UNINSTALL SOME #$*# ADWARE - BUT IT SENT ME TO THE INTERNET

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Soemwhere down the line, some piece of crud planted itself into my program list. "Interstitial Ad Delivery by nCase".

I've been getting a truckload of popups even when my browser isn't up, so I'm hunting up ways to get rid of things. When I hit "remove program", it sent me to the internet to download an "uninstall" program.

I'm reluctant to do this, especially since I wouldn't have installed the first one knowingly or voluntarily in the first place - and figure they'll just send me more adware - which has really fouled up this box.

Anyone else have experience with this?

[Gun142]

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

[Dead Corpse]

Head over to Lavasoft and download Ad Aware. It should clean it off your system. Good program, it even gets rid of Gator.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Do a google search for "ad aware". It is a free program that will hunt out these nasty little bugs and let you delete them.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Actually, Spybot Search & Destroy might be a better choice for the more aggressive types of adware. Plus it is currently being updated and will catch the new stuff, where AdAware is not and won't. I've made the switch and am much happier with SPybot S&D. It gets the stuff out that AdAware missed.

[N. Theknow]

I got something called "www.cantfind.com" that pops-up and takes over the whole screen when I try to hit a link in some sites that have ads like ESPN and Excite. It looks like a search engine but all of its links go to "ALL" the BS sites I get spam for like mortgages, casino gambling, etc.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Gator is a nasty piece of work, too. Nothing beats keeping a notepad next to the computer with your passwords on it.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Got that program scanning now - we're up to 115, and not even a quarter done.

[tomkat]

actually, AdAware 6 has been out for about a month now.
nicer UI, more control of options, and still free.
paid version does auto-updates and runs AdWatch as a realtime monitor.

AdAware 6

[Chancellor Palpatine]

My favorites are the ones that take over your toolbar if you had it set up on google or yahoo, and give you only affiliated commercial sites on a search.

If you ever get one, try browsing for google or yahoo - it won't find them.

[LibWhacker]

Ad-aware is great. Perhaps a good alternative is to buy the "professional" version of ZoneAlarm (cheap) and configure "ad blocking to 'medium'". I say perhaps because I'm not totally certain about this.

ZoneAlarm says medium blocking blocks all ads that do not load in 3 seconds are blocked, as well as all popup, pop under, and all animated ads. I'm a bit concerned about this since it says nothing about scumware. However, it seems to do the job.

All I know is that since I purchased ZoneAlarm Pro and configured it, Ad-aware has NEVER found ANY scumware at all on my machine, even when I was bothering to update it frequently. And that's been well over a year ago. So ZoneAlarm seems to be doing the job quite well. And it does it pro-actively. No need to stop, update and run Ad-aware anymore, which does take some time and is a bit of a nuisance, particularly if you have a very large harddrive.

[Wooly]

Spybot Search adn Destroy is much better at getting rid of this type of spyware than AdAware can. You can download it at www.lurkhere.com as freeware.

[mhking]

Get, install and use - in order - Spybot Search & Destroy, AdAware, Zone Alarm, and a good virus protection program with regular automatic updating. I can't tell you how much that combination has helped me.

[Consort]

How to uninstall n-CASE.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

actually, AdAware 6 has been out for about a month now.

Yeah, I downloaded it and tried it. They've taken some features from 5.xx and put them in the pro version. Plus, I ran it after a longish surfing session and then ran SPybot S&D and Spybot found a ton more stuff that AdAware mised. Plus..plus..plus...for the truly paranoid PC users...Spybot also identifies and will purge usage tracks for any program that accesses the registry. AdAware will not.

I really loved AdAware but Spybot S&D just does a better job. (Plus it has different skins).

[martin_fierro]

DItto #5.

Spybot S&D works really well.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Ad-Aware hit nearly 300 items, but then the system crashed. After I rebooted, it seems to be doing a lot better, but I'm gonna do spybot in a couple of hours.

[MississippiMan]

Good program, it even gets rid of Gator.

I love Gator. Hate Gator's ads. So I tell ZoneAlarm to disallow Gator access to either the local network or the Internet. Still have the convenience. No ads. :-)

MM

[SengirV]

I know, get a Mac. No adware self installing piss poor excuse for an OS over here. No popups while browsing either, provided I use a browser other than IE.