<font color=skyblue>I always run Hijack This before rebootig or turning off my computer every day. I am glad for it today. It saved me, from what I have read.

There was a file that was found called Microsoft Office.hta. It had never turned up in a Hijack search before, so I was suspicious. Running a Google on it, turned up this, among other hits. Obviously, it is not really a Microsoft file.

What it did was turn off my XP firewall so that if and when I rebooted, it would be allowed to download a bunch of crap. I zapped it in Hijack This and run a bunch of searches. When I rebooted, the MSN firewall was indeed disabled and begged to be turned back on, which I complied.

Just for your info...I have more than the XP firewall enabled. I also have a Hardware firewall and Zone Alarm, along with Spyware Guard and Spyware Blaster...two programs that help keep the defences up. I also have Adaware, which does a better job at finding stuff than does Spybot, but I have Spybot anyway. I scan for viruses with Panda and Trend Micro both.

My greatest resource, however, is definately Google, which always tells me what suspicious characters are once my Hijack This program finds them.

Be on the alert.</font>

Yeah, but how much of this stuff is free Larry?

I know Zonealarm and Adaware are 'cos I've got those. In fact, thats all I got! :D

All of the programs are free [img]smile.gif[/img] I have a lot running on my father's PC. Adaware has really come along way since I first tried it. Then it found barely anything compared to spybot and now it always finds more.

Well thanks for the info Larry.

What's "hijack this", I'd look myself on the web but I'm currently downloading spybot and my modem is running at ....sssssnnnnaaaaiiiiillllll pace.

From a review of Hijackthis:

HijackThis is a tool, that lists all installed browser add-on, buttons, startup items and allows you to inspect, and optionally remove selected items. The program can create a backup of your original settings and also ignore selected items. Additional features include a simple list of all startup items, default start page, online updates and more. Intended for advanced users.

If everyone did what Larry does, viruses would be a lot less rampant I think.

That's quite a defense there, like a castle for the computer. I've got AVG, Spybot, Ad-Aware (the upgraded edition is great!), Spyware sweeper...I think that's it. More like a small fort. Its Achilles heel is that it only has the XP firewall.

Actually Firefox, Zonealarm and a good antivirus (I use Avast) are enough. If you don't use Internet Explorer you save yourself a lot of trouble. Since installing Firefox I got nothing found by Adaware and Spybot and nothing found by Avast (installed Firefox two months ago).

Larry, thank you very much.

This stuff is clearing loads of rubbish up! :D


EDIT-ARGGGGHHHH

Isn't there a program that does what Alertspy does...but for free, it's no good identifying whats wrong with my pc and than making me fork ou dough to get rid of it...well, except trying getting me to buy it. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

HELP

[ 01-09-2005, 04:31 PM: Message edited by: Sigmar ]

spysweeper.