Blarxin' frackin' spyware...

[Bungleau]

Kazaa is a good source of spyware... removing it will do you nothing but good.

And Mack, what did you scan with? That helps to answer what you should do... [img]smile.gif[/img] In general, for a data miner like Alexa you can just delete it from the registry.

The results from the latest Spybot scan are in, BTW... it picked up another dozen things, including some registry entries that McAfee missed when cleaning out a trojan that had taken up residence. I mean to tell you... after all the spyware I've found on this machine the last couple of days, I really have this urge to wash my hands... about thirty times, just to feel clean again.

I'm going to have to go through my HijackThis log to see what each thing is. There were more entries that popped up in there that are spyware (or helpers, or other such) that I want to remove.

On a side note, the latest version of Spybot has, in advanced mode, a registry scanner that you can run. It picked up registry inconsistencies that the regular scan missed. Might be worth running...

[andrewas]

Alexa is amazon.coms spyware. It monitors your internet activity and reports back so that they can advertise to you more effectively. It seems to be better written than most in that its on virtualy all machines and not all infected machines crash. Since its relatively harmless you can delete it or not as you desire. Personaly, I kill all such evil things.

On kazaa - get kazaa lite. It lacks the spywares of the regular version, but has all the functionality.

[philip]

Originally posted by Bungleau: Kazaa is a good source of spyware... removing it will do you nothing but good.

Well my brother keeps reinstalling it.

The good news is after playing with hijackthis for 20 minutes I can now declare the annoying spyware dead [img]smile.gif[/img] It turned out to be a windows file which kept reinstalling it. Thanks for the help [img]smile.gif[/img]

[philip]

Originally posted by andrewas: On kazaa - get kazaa lite. It lacks the spywares of the regular version, but has all the functionality.

My brother has KazaaLite supernodes or something and it's full of the stuff as well. I don't support p2pnetworks for stealing stuff so as long as my brother keeps installing it I like deleting the spyware out of it [img]smile.gif[/img] On the other hand why would I care if some of those stupid rappers get ripped off. Anyway it's his decision (I'll just buy my CDs) to use it and not my computer.

[Bungleau]

Woohoo! Another piece of scumware dead...

Not that I'm happy about it or anything... no, not me [img]smile.gif[/img] Tonight I'll have to go through this machine with the full HijackThis report and everything else. I *am* supposed to get some work done today... [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Mack_Attack]

Originally posted by Bungleau: And Mack, what did you scan with? That helps to answer what you should do... [img]smile.gif[/img] In general, for a data miner like Alexa you can just delete it from the registry.

I scanned with "xoftspy" it was some free software that I Down-loaded. If you have something better that I should use please tell me. I am a newbie to all this stuff.

Thanks all for the help.

[Bungleau]

*yawn* one update before going to bed... tonight's activities with HijackThis were helpful, to say the least. There were two other spywares out there (Twain-tech and clearsearch) that needed to be cleaned up, and after that, I might almost be clean [img]smile.gif[/img]

I have come across one interesting file... interesting because no one seems to know about it. Anyone familiar with a file by the name of bcoadiq.exe? It's in my winnt/system32 directory (running Win2k), and HijackThis thought it was curious. Only I can't seem to find anything out about it...

I think that's enough for tonight. G'nite, all [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Bungleau]

Missed your post in passing last night, Mack.

My recommendations:

1. Spybot Search & Destroy -- freeware
2. Ad-Aware -- free home use copy
3. ZoneAlarm -- free home use copy
4. HijackThis -- freeware
5. Popup Killer -- freeware, abandoned

1 & 2 are spyware removers and protecters... between the two, they get 'most everything. 3 is a firewall... if you don't have one, you need one. And 4 is a checking/cleaning tool that looks for inconsistencies. It requires a bit more knowledge than 1 & 2, but it also find things they might not.

5 is freeware, but the original developer has stopped work on it. It still works quite nicely, though...

You can never be too safe... or too paranoid [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Larry_OHF]

Originally posted by Bungleau: Missed your post in passing last night, Mack. My recommendations: 1. Spybot Search & Destroy -- freeware 2. Ad-Aware -- free home use copy 3. ZoneAlarm -- free home use copy 4. HijackThis -- freeware 5. Popup Killer -- freeware, abandoned 1 & 2 are spyware removers and protecters... between the two, they get 'most everything. 3 is a firewall... if you don't have one, you need one. And 4 is a checking/cleaning tool that looks for inconsistencies. It requires a bit more knowledge than 1 & 2, but it also find things they might not. 5 is freeware, but the original developer has stopped work on it. It still works quite nicely, though... You can never be too safe... or too paranoid [img]smile.gif[/img]

I have everything you have with the addition of two others, SPYWAREGUARD and MRU Blaster.

MRU Blaster to me is far superior to the others. Usually, if I run it, nothing is left for my others searchers to find.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

I haven't heard of the Blarxin frackin spyware [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img] but I've certainly had my share of other spyware programs.

Just yesterday, one of my coworkers asked me to "fix" her computer. She had come in to work only to find that ALL of her Desktop Icons were gone and her PC was covered with several pages of Porn Pics. {she is a devout Christian, so I couldn't help teasing her about not going in to "those kind of sites" to begin with}

She was infected with the "i-look" virus. I downloaded Adaware and Spybuster Search and Destroy and that cleared up the problem. But in the short time the spyware was on her computer, it had generated 174 bad files.

Larry - Thanks for the expanded list. It's nice to have that as a reference if I run into other spyware that Adaware and Spybot can't handle.