Spyware/adware Id And Help

BathroomMonkey · May 2003

<div class="IPBDescription">I want to murder this software.</div> For the life of me, I can't locate the renegade process on my computer that's doing this, so I figured I'd go with the shotgun approach and see if anyone else had similar problems:

I have some sort of adware hidden on my machine (<i>not</i> Gator, or at least not the standard obvious-and-somewhat-easy-to-remove version of Gator). When I run IE, it <i>constantly</i> pops up its own windows with 'helpful' related material. For example, if I go to google and do a search, when I submit it, another window pops up on top with the results from a search at featured-results.com. And, of course, I'm deluged with a lot of ads off of sites that <i>don't</i> pop up random ads.

Also, every now and then, some shorcuts to web pages will simply appear on my desktop-- most often, they're for some stupid spycam, or some moronic web casino, but occasionally (and ironically) they'll be promising to <i>rid</i> me of spyware.

I've installed winpatrol and adaware, but to no avail. Neither can locate the culprit . . . so, has anyone else out there ever dealt with this before?

FlyFlown · May 2003

I have exactly the same problem and dont have a clue how to get rid of it :/ It's really annoying tbh

DY357LX · May 2003

I think the first thing you should do is download
Adaware 6. It scans you drive for dodgy cookies and files.
Takes about 4/5 minutes on my 74 gig drive.

<a href='http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/' target='_blank'>Lavasoft's AdaWare</a>

A registry cleaner may also be useful.

<a href='http://mrswizard.com/reg_cleaner.htm' target='_blank'>Try this one.</a>

Give those a try and let us know how you got on.
I'm sure more people will post more handy tools and utilities.

That_Annoying_Kid · May 2003

you might want to check your registry, I'm guessing your on PC, and you might want to run that windows command that lets you see what turns on @ startup, I can't remember it's name, and see if there is anything that you don't want running at startup running...

Ph0enix · May 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (th@ annoying kid @ May 20 2003, 04:09 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> you might want to check your registry, I'm guessing your on PC, and you might want to run that windows command that lets you see what turns on @ startup, I can't remember it's name, and see if there is anything that you don't want running at startup running...  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
Start>Run>Msconfig. You'll see there any dodgy programs which kick in at startup. Also look for any apps/processes running using task manager.

CrouchingHamster · May 2003

On mine, that would be start /run/ msconfig.exe

Once you have the list of whats going on at startup, compare it to the startups guide here.

<a href='http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk' target='_blank'>http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk</a>
<a href='http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pages/startup_all.php' target='_blank'>http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pages...startup_all.php</a>

see if anything looks a bit suspect.

If there is something dodgy, you might not be able to delete it this way, but you <i>might</i> be able to stop it running on startup..

Worth a pop anyway.

InfinityX · May 2003

Spybot's quite good

<a href='http://security.kolla.de/' target='_blank'>Link</a>

Infinitum · May 2003

It's scary how many files go on my pc.....

92.....

eek

DY357LX · May 2003

I'm gonna download that SpyBot and give it a try...
as soon as I can drag myself away from Infinitum's
amazingly "awesome" signature. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>
I saw that kid's vid and the remxed vid on Penny-Arcade.
Absolutely brilliant.

CplDavis · May 2003

Get the program called Stinger, Id post it here but its too big.

It gets rid of and deletes, and immunizes against several major spy/addware files.

Dubers · May 2003

<a href='http://www.lavasoftusa.com/' target='_blank'>The best spyware **** kicker!</a>

kiwi_3 · May 2003

This site should have a solution to ur problem

<a href='http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/' target='_blank'>http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/</a>

RPG_Jssmfulhud · May 2003

Well... I always got rid of any kind of intruders... Without the help of programs... I eventually traced them down, deleted the folder... And if that couldn't bedone, i restarted in safe mode and blew the sucker away. Of course, go to system tools -> system information and disable the intruder in the ini file. They're almost always there... Once you disable it, it'l be safe to delete. And check the registry. Search for all the keys and values and delete without mercy!

Oh, and to be more safe...

Get this program, it just rocks.
<a href='http://www.proxomitron.org' target='_blank'>The Proxomitron</a>

Sirus · May 2003

I ran Adaware on my school computer...I got about 400, I quarantined, and I still got an add whenever I started IE.

These people are evil...even more than...telemarketers.

RPG_Jssmfulhud · May 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Sirus @ May 21 2003, 07:22 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> These people are evil...even more than...telemarketers.  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
Ditto that!

blue2k · May 2003

in internet explorer

tools>internet options>general>settings>view objects

this is where active x controls are downloded to, you can right click on any of them and see where they are from, and if they say "dailer" or "unknown" or anything really odd like www.adwhatever.com just get rid of them. you only really need ones like quicktime objects and shockwave if you use those type of programs but you can safely delete them all if needed.

sometimes when you visit a site it will automatically dl unwanted active x controls onto your hdd, i belive this should be made illegal as it is tantamount to E-rape in my opinion.

Broode · May 2003

I had the exact same problem over the past few months. I'd tried everything - spyware removers, virus scans, searching through every option of IE.. but no matter what, when I opened a browser, a popup would come up and the 'Search' button was pressed. It was driving me insane.
Then, totally by accident, I found the culprit. I was cleaning up startup when i discovered something called sp.dll. A quick search on pacs-portal.co.uk told me it was spyware.. but for some reason wasn't being picked up. Disabling that, and deleting the registry entry had everything back to normal.

Spyware/adware Id And Help

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