Spyware/Adware
 

My new PC is being plagued by Spyware and/or Adware! I don't have the slightest clue how to fix it and make it all go away! Can anyone please help???

Have you already installed Spybot and Adaware?

The Google Toolbar ain't bad either.

I've got ad-aware & I keep quarantining everything it tells me to but I'm still having problems.

First of all, when I pull up IE it goes to a page w/ the web address: "about:blank".

Second of all, I've got a program in my control panel that is called "Search Assistant Uninstall" that won't uninstall when I tell it to!

And third of all, I'm getting pop-ups everytime I open IE! Help!

When I googled "Spybot" I couldn't find a program/company name that I recognized/trusted! What do you suggest?

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

This is the SpyBot website.

I had something like that. I ended up reinstalling windows since I had only had my computer for a week.

Spybot Search and Destroy

I'd suggest that you run Spybot first.

Remove any results.

Click on the immunize once done.

Immunize against all bad products.

You will need to change some Ad Aware settings in order to get the best benefit.

Once you've done that you may want to reboot and see what happens.

Post back here either way to let us know what happened.

Stop using IE and use Mozilla. Greatest browser ever.

use Ad-Aware, Mozilla FireFox, and an anti-virus.

I didn't have time to play around w/ it this morning before I left for work but last night before I went to bed I installed the Google toolbar (which I'm also using @ work to help block pop-ups) and that seemed to take care of my problem for now. I ran Ad-Aware 3 times in a row this morning and it didn't detect any problems but I still have that "Search Assistant Uninstall" in my programs.

I'll run Spybot when I get home tonight. Hopefully all will be well!

Make sure you are running Ad-aware by Lavasoft and not one of it's spyware look alikes. www.tucows.com has reliable downloads of all of these programs.

Try rebooting your computer in safe mode (hit F8 as it is starting to boot) and then running these programs. Last week my paralegal managed to get a program on my machine that I had to use HiJack This! to get rid of. Ad-aware and Spybot didn't recognize it.

Good luck!

Ok I've got a problem with Spyware.

I downloaded Spybot and ran it the other night. It got rid of most of the spyware except for 2, one of them being Wild Tangent.

Spybot said it couldn't remove it right then and there because it was currently "in use in the memory" or something. So I restarted the computer and when I did, Spybot restarted... and took FOREVER. I seriously waited over 20 minutes for it to do it's thing (setting a retrival spot or something) and I think it froze. I have tried again since, and Spybot keeps freezing.

What am I doing wrong?

And now I am getting error messages from WT saying the files are incomplete.

I can't get Spybot to work, either. It gets about halfway done and then has lots of error messages. I run AdAware once a day, but I have heard that Spybot finds things that AdAware doesn't. Anyone know what it could be?

Get a Mac, no really, it works wonders at reducing spyware and all that stuff. :p

Believe me... if I had any money, I'd have a powerbook in a heartbeat.

I don't do a lot of power computing, mostly e-mail and the occasional paper for school so I ended up with "Romeo" my 12" iBook G4 and I couldn't be happier. He's been great and never given me any problems (knock on wood!) so I feel confident in recommending a Mac. I've also noticed that I don't have as many pop-ups even without having the Safari pop-up blocker turned on!