Tangled in Spyware:

The Houston Chronicle ^ | October 31, 2004 | Anick Jesdanun [Associated Press]

[quidnunc]

David Eckstein turned on his computer one day and launched his Web browser, just as he had every day. This time, however, CNN.com did not automatically open. Instead, the page was a search engine he'd never heard of.

Eckstein tried changing the browser settings back to CNN but the search engine would return whenever he rebooted. Finally, he just gave up.

The San Francisco marketing consultant is yet another victim of spyware, an amorphous class of software that mostly gets onto people's computers without their knowledge. So resource-hungry, it often renders the machines unusable.

"It makes you want to throw your computer out the window," Eckstein said.

In the past year, the problem has become epidemic as people spend more time online and spyware developers get more aggressive.

"It makes spam look like a walk in the park," said Bob Bowman, chief executive of Major League Baseball's Internet unit, which in June started banning new advertisers from using such techniques.

As part of a government-backed study, technicians visited Jenna Dye recently in Young Harris, Ga., and found 1,300 spyware-related items on her machine.

"It would shut itself down in the middle of doing stuff. We had lots of pop-ups. The (CD-ROM) drawers would pop open," the mother of two complained. "It's frustrating. We spent $1,800 on our computer and we didn't want to use it."

Until the machine was cleaned up, Dye and her husband would make 2 1/2 hour trips to the nearest mall to avoid shopping online. "We use it every day now again," she said.

Spyware was found on the computers of 80 percent of participants in the study, conducted by America Online Inc. and the National Cyber Security Alliance.

-snip-

[ErnBatavia]

I love my AdAware.

I run mine every 3 or 4 days....I always get between 5 and 25 of the exact same thing "Tracking something or other"...how about you? I don't even know what that is, but I sure as hell give it the quarantine treatment.

[1rudeboy]

Never had a problem with the Google toolbar . . . .

[ASA Vet]

I have little sympathy for David Eckstein or anyone else who has Commie News Network as their home page.

[Cicero]

Like everything else to do with computers, you just have to learn to deal with it.

The major anti-spyware programs have already been mentioned. I have also occasionally found it necessary to clean up my Registry after deleting some of these programs.

I use RegCleaner. I hesitate to recommend this or any other registry cleaner because they can be very dangerous, but so far it has worked for me. Some programs have just refused to let go until I removed the registry entries.

[Sisku Hanne]

I never took notice of that but it would be great if they supported Mozilla.
I use MailWasher(freeware) to scan my ISP's email(personal) and my Hotmail account(online auctions & registrations) before the messages are downloaded- you can block the senders and bounce their emails back, and by deleting before download, they don't get confirmation that your addy is "live".
My Yahoo email(boards & forums) never seems to be a problem- seems they do well with scanning and removing spam.

[Maceman]

Spybot S&D, AdAware, and Hijack This! do wonders to prevent malware from taking over one's computer. All are freeware available on the WWW.

Are there any compatibility issues/conflicts with the Norton Internet Security firewall?

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

bookmark

[peyton randolph]

Are there any compatibility issues/conflicts with the Norton Internet Security firewall?

Shouldn't be but can't confirm. I run them with McAfee Antivirus and ZoneAlarm's free firewall without any problem.

[jellybean]

I installed Ad Aware the other day and immediately my computer shut down. Rebooted and the same thing happened. This time when I rebooted I uninstalled Ad Aware and haven't had a problem since.

I've got Stop Sign which cost $4.oo a month and keeps my machine clean and Armor2Net as a firewall...it works great!!

[Hendrix]

I had that happen to me. Some homepage called "about" kept replacing my homepage and would not let me go to certain sites. I have a firewall, norton anti-virus (which I update every few days), and spybot. I could not get the stupid thing off. Every time I would change my homepage back, it would get changed back to this "about" search page. Finally, I got on the internet and found how to solve it. I had to go into the about page, copy the first line of code and paste it at a website that told me what the file was called, then go into windows and rename that file (it won't let you delete it). It was fixed after all of that. That was the only thing that would solve it.

[jalisco555]

Like everything else to do with computers, you just have to learn to deal with it.

Or you can get a Mac and never have to deal with it. I have both in my home (I'm gradually shifting to all Mac) and the amount of time and aggravation involved in maintaining my Windows machines is enormous. Virtually zero with my Mac.

[backhoe]

Help for viruses and malware:

 

 Ad-Aware ... Spybot ... Peper Uninstaller ... HijackThis... CWShredder ... Spyware Blaster ... IE Spyad ... Free online Virus scan ... AVG AntiVirus ... LSPfix ... How to Show Hidden Files ... How to boot into Safe Mode ... How did I get infected in the first place?

---

Things you need--(all FREE)
Anti-Virus
AVG

 Avast
Firewall
Kerio(Direct Download) Zone Alarm

 If are using zone alarm it may slow your PC. Try Outpost Firewall http://www.agnitum.com/products/outpost or Sygate Firewall http://www.sygate.com/, both have FREE and Pro versions and are heads above ZA.
Misc.
IE Spyads SpywareBlaster Spyware Guard
Windows Update- you must keep updated, it is the start of a secure system-
get all CRITICAL Updates

Things you want(Still Free)
 

  I use Firefox PR1 and IMHO, beats the sox off MS Explorer. Life is good with tabs. Click the link and give it a try.

Ad-Aware
Spybot S&D

SpywareBlaster
MS MVP Hosts file

Mike Lin's Homepage and get the Startup Control Panel and Startup Monitor tools.

 

The best forum for malware removal:

 http://forums.spywareinfo.com/index.php?s=262d844129208feb8b0cf5b0186a32f6&act=SC&c=4
SWI Forums--

[Nevermore]

Spybot S&D, AdAware, and Hijack This! do wonders to prevent malware from taking over one's computer. All are freeware available on the WWW.

None of them does a complete job, but I'd highly recommend them all. I especially like Spybot for a few of its extra features: Tea Timer, which guards against any registry changes, and the Tools, by which you can monitor various settings/registry entries. Using these and a good firewall and virus software will keep a system clean.

But, you know, there "oughta be a law" to crack down on this nonsense: there needs to be some recourse against the perpetrators. Now, if Edwards could file class action lawsuits against them, instead of obstetricians, I'd begin to have some respect for him...maybe. (But not likely.)

[happydogdesign]

Dealing with Spyware and Adware

[quidnunc]

Hendrix wrote: I had that happen to me. Some homepage called "about" kept replacing my homepage and would not let me go to certain sites. I have a firewall, norton anti-virus (which I update every few days), and spybot. I could not get the stupid thing off. Every time I would change my homepage back, it would get changed back to this "about" search page. Finally, I got on the internet and found how to solve it. I had to go into the about page, copy the first line of code and paste it at a website that told me what the file was called, then go into windows and rename that file (it won't let you delete it). It was fixed after all of that. That was the only thing that would solve it.

Do you have specifics on this?

My son has this problem with About.com defaulting as his home page.

I have a Mac so I couldn't help him.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I was going to post the same thing about Mac. Apple's fraction of sales is so small that the platform is ignored by the creeps that write viruses, malware, spyware, etc. Just the same, I run a Linksys router with NAT, NetBarrier X3 that doesn't allow my machine to be a server or call out and Norton Antivirus. So far, no problems.

Now if only Apple would solve the bit-rot problem in Safari.

[Trepz]

Also WinPatrol at www.winpatrol.com

this program will advise you of any attempts to change your registry.

[paulat]

I am a VERY savvy computer geek and I can't figure out how to download adaware...pls help.

[avg_freeper]

"Apple would solve the bit-rot problem in Safari."

Is that where it starts getting really slow to open and The Magic Multicolored Beachball of Eternity spins away? I use Firefox now. But it too has quite a few problems.