The never ending battle against spyware, pop-ups, etc.

Z

Zapatista

Registered User
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130
Hey All,

My girlfriend has a nice laptop which she and I regularly use. As time goes by it's performance is getting slower and slower due to various spyware programs, etc. However what I find the most annoying pest are the constant stream of unwanted pop-ups that litter the screen while surfing the net. I mananged to reasonably rescue my PC not to long ago from these internet vermon using various anti-spyware and anti-virus software packages. However non of them amazed me with their profficiency.

Can anyone recommend a good program/s to remedy all of these issues??

Zapa
 
Re: The never ending battle against Spyware, Pop-up's, etc.

used spyware doctor on my PC, www.pctools.com, pretty good for stopping spyware, plenty of regulat updates. The windows XP pop-up blocker works pretty good as well.
 
Re: The never ending battle against Spyware, Pop-up's, etc.

I swear by 2 utilities.
AVG antivirus.
mozilla firefox instead of IE

For added security use mozilla with the following 2 extensions
1. adblock
2. noscript
go here and search for them.

been nasty free for as long as I can remember since using them, For extra piece of mind, use the MS antispyware tool as well. All the links to above should be in the cleanpc post.
 
Re: The never ending battle against Spyware, Pop-up's, etc.

Alternatively buy a mac, my better half has an ibook and myself an imac. Have never looked back.
 
Re: The never ending battle against Spyware, Pop-up's, etc.

A network admin told me that there is no single spyware program out there that will do the job. You need two or three to cover the bases. And you must always update the virus and spyware definitions constantly!
 
Kerio firewall, avg and lavasoft. Tonight was the first night in 4 months that avg detected a trogan that got through. Deleted it automatically. Thats what I used to dislike about Norton. Told you the trojan was there, and it was up to you to delete it, sometimes by going into safe mode. Swear by Avg and lavasoft ad-aware. Kerio is a free firewall I got of a post in aam by gizmo?
 
I've got a subscription to McAffee Internet security and I've got about 4 anti-spyware programmes installed. McAffee allows you to block ads, and I hardly ever have a problem with pop-ups. I run all the antispyware programms (spyboot, adware, ewido, etc) regularly and install windows updates on a regular basis. Best thing to do is log onto http://www.spywareinfo.com/ and go into the forums. Post your "hijack this log" and get one of the guys to look over it for you. (It's all explained very well how to do it, etc) I had a browser hijack almost shut down my computer (it was brand-new and none of my programs detected it) and they rescued me....
 
Pest Patrol is another one that comes recommended. We also have norton anti-virus as well. Should probably get another 1 or 2 anti-spyware software programmes on top of this. You can also use 'tools' 'internet options' to turn off pop ups but I found that this sometimes causes an issue with banking websites as the login screen pops up in a secondary window.
 
I use the following
Adaware
[broken link removed]

Spybot
[broken link removed]

and an up to date virus checker. It's important to keep all the programs up to date and run regular scans.
 
I use the Google Toolbar to stop popups and Microsoft Antispyware for getting rid of nasties
 
It might be worth considering switching to Linux. Ubuntu is an easy to install/use flavour of Linux which you could get on a Linux magazine cover DVD, the default installation includes Firefox and Open Office.
 
All of the listed software on this thread is in the clean pc post. ;)

As we're on about who prefers what, heres a recent ranking done by zdnet with adaware coming out on top...
 
car said:
All of the listed software on this thread is in the clean pc post. ;)

As we're on about who prefers what, heres a recent ranking done by zdnet with adaware coming out on top...
Click to expand...
I find this ironic. I clicked on the link above and my Spybot told me that the site was attempting to download "double Click" which it says is a known risk
 
woods said:
I find this ironic. I clicked on the link above and my Spybot told me that the site was attempting to download "double Click" which it says is a known risk
Click to expand...
Must be something else triggering that warning since that page is clean. Perhaps your browser is already infected with some malware? Are you using IE? If so try to access the page with another browser (e.g. FireFox) and see if you get the warning again. I have Spybot installed and fully up to date and used FireFox 1.5.0.1 to access the page with no problems.
 
I have Spy-bot, Ad-Aware and Spyware Blaster as well as Norton. I have Firefox but do not use it.
Up untill recently the Spy-bot did not warn me of a risk but just blocked it automatically. I must have changed something lately because now it asks me if I want to reject something. I am only asked this maybe twice a week and I was asked it on this site.
If I log on using Firefox and encounter nothing it does not mean that there is nothing there. It just means that I was protected without knowing it.

While on this topic. Does anyone know what are the dissadvantages of allowing Active X Controls.
 
woods said:
I have Spy-bot, Ad-Aware and Spyware Blaster
Click to expand...
I have these three too, use FireFox and that page/site poses no problems for me.
Does anyone know what are the dissadvantages of allowing Active X Controls.
Click to expand...
Like anything that downloads to and runs on your PC they can be used for nefarious purposes.
 
downlaod 'hitman pro 2' runs about 10 different free programs - guaranteed spyware free after that
 
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