03-30-2004, 12:57 AM | #1 |
Egyptian Goddess of the Dead
Join Date: July 12, 2001
Location: South Carolina
Age: 40
Posts: 3,771
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My computer is pretty much constantly and heavily bogged down with spy- and adware. I have desktop icons, installed programs, new homepages, pop-ups, the lot. Spybot SD and Adaware don't help much at all - I can run them both several times as well as clear out all my cookies, caches, and internet files. This does help a little, but the bulk of it stays on my computer, and every time I think I've deleted it all, it's back again when I reboot.
My question is, where do I go from here? I can't seem to shift this rubbish by any means. If there is any program out there that will properly get rid of all this crap as well as block pop-ups (without disallowing me to open new browser windows) I'd be prepared to pay whatever's necessary. I've also considered just buying a new laptop hard drive so that I can start afresh, but this is costly. Any ideas, anyone? I'm loathe to fork out $350 for a new hard drive, but I don't want to live with all this gunk on my notebook either. Thanks for any suggestions [img]smile.gif[/img] |
03-30-2004, 01:03 AM | #2 |
Knight of the Rose
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Hmmm just a thought, perhaps go through the control panel, add/remove software and taking out anything that isn't a driver, program you actively use or update? Then again you may have already tried that, and/or perhaps found nothing there that may be the cause of your troubles.
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03-30-2004, 01:12 AM | #3 |
Egyptian Goddess of the Dead
Join Date: July 12, 2001
Location: South Carolina
Age: 40
Posts: 3,771
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That's the thing - I have a lot of programs on that list that I never put on there, and when I click 'remove' either nothing happens or I get some error, so I can't shift them. It's all pretty sucky
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03-30-2004, 01:44 AM | #4 |
Jack Burton
Join Date: November 10, 2001
Location: Bathurst & Orange, in constant flux
Age: 37
Posts: 5,452
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Make sure Spyboth and Ad-Aware are both fully updated. Use the internal updaters in both of them. Make sure Ad-Aware is set to it's most optimal performance (Custom scan, click customize; under 'scanning' tick everything you can except for 'skip'; under Tweak, extend the 'Scanning Engine' tree and tick the top one (make sure the second one is *not* ticked)). Run Ad-Aware, once it finishes rightclick the list and select all, delete, and clear your quarantine list. Then run Spybot, and again select and Fix everything it comes up with.
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03-30-2004, 03:57 AM | #5 | |
Jack Burton
Join Date: March 21, 2001
Location: Philippines, but now Harbor City Sydney
Age: 40
Posts: 5,556
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Quote:
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Catch me if you can.. |
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03-30-2004, 04:13 AM | #6 |
Emerald Dragon
Join Date: February 6, 2003
Location: Norway
Age: 38
Posts: 928
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IMO, it's still worth it... only thing I can think of that it may mess up are some p2p filesharing proggies that freak out once they realize you've removed the ad-/spy-ware they installed.
Btw, I think the next Gator-popup after running Ad-Aware or Spybot will claim that "the force is strong in you" and ask you to join the dark side.
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03-30-2004, 10:04 AM | #7 | |
Harper
Join Date: October 2, 2001
Location: Aberdeen, Scotland
Age: 42
Posts: 4,774
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Quote:
What is dangerous is another program called hijack this, kill everything that flags and your computer won't boot. But it lists anything that could possibly be a spyware or other malware, so with caution its fairly good at killing everything. Post its logfile here or use the FAQ to work out whats safe.
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03-30-2004, 10:45 AM | #8 |
20th Level Warrior
Join Date: December 28, 2003
Location: Kentucky
Age: 38
Posts: 2,820
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Care to say that again, more slowly Andrewas?
There's also the solution of killing the stuff with a coding editor...y'know, going in and deleting random lines of code in the offending stuff...seems like we were talking about that here about a month ago...
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03-30-2004, 02:27 PM | #9 |
Symbol of Bane
Join Date: November 26, 2001
Location: Texas
Age: 75
Posts: 8,167
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Is it just me, or has this stuff gotten more intrusive and annoying, lately? And, does it work? Does anyone buy anything advertised in a popup? I just killed one by something called System Soap, and I swear that I wopuld never, ever buy anything done by them.
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Even Heroes sometimes fail... |
03-30-2004, 03:26 PM | #10 |
Egyptian Goddess of the Dead
Join Date: July 12, 2001
Location: South Carolina
Age: 40
Posts: 3,771
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Two words. Spy Sweeper (www.spysweeper.com). I am saved. Thank you god.
Regcleaner 4.3 also helped remove a lot of the excess registry. I'd definitely recommend these two programs to anyone who wants a fresh, clean system. [ 03-30-2004, 03:36 PM: Message edited by: Arledrian ] |
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