SpyWare - Scumware - SpyBots

Internet ^ | 02-11-2003 | Self

[Positive]

Hey - anybody here get stuck with "Spy" stuff like www.SpyOnYou.com when you go from Drudge to Freerepublic?

Have you had your browser hijacked? I suddenly found that when I launched IE6, instead of taking me to my chosen start-up site, it took me to www.searchex.com which is no more than a page full of links to spam sites discuised as a search engine.

Today I decided to do something about this. I called my ISP techsupport desk. They referred me to a website and suggested I try Ad-Aware. I tried the free version of Ad-Aware and it said it found lots of stuff but it didn't fix my problem.

OK - enough background, I searched around and found the website linked to above and found freeware called SpyBot - Search & Destroy. It cleaned up my system. It is recommended by PC World and TechTV. It does say use at your own risk however. If you try it please be careful, it searches through your system registry and will delete entries that you allow it to.

Better safe than sorry, if the entry refers to software that you know by name and want - deselect it.

[Rockiesrider]

I've been running the free ad-ware program with good results. Its not perfect but hey its free.

[ShadowAce]

I don't get spyware anymore

[ikka]

If you run Mozilla, www.mozilla.org, instead of IE, it won't automatically install that crapware to begin with.

[PackerBoy]

There is also Xupiter -- which somehow insinuates itself onto your PC and tries to supplant your normal home page. I used SpyBot S&D to delete it.

I am not sue-happy, but I think its should be a crime to stick anything other than a completely benign cookie (if there is such a thing) onto someone else's PC without their explicit consent.

[JCG]

So the Kraut has a Web site that has something about Che Guevara on it and I'm supposed to be impressed?

America's Fifth Column ... watch Steve Emerson/PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
New Link: Download 8 Mb zip file here (60 minute video)

Who is Steve Emerson?

[Robert_Paulson2]

it's true.
Mozilla does a real good job.

[Lunatic Fringe]

You could try changing your homepage through Tools -> Internet Options -> Home Page

[Question_Assumptions]

Bump for later.

[Rightone]

Yep, SpyBot is great. Be careful with it, though. Don't just allow it to delete everything it finds. It will give some items at the beginning or the top that it considers the real "spies." Those have always been correct and needed to be deleted on my system. I like to run it once or twice per week. (I also run Ad Aware, but that that is not as thorough, imo.)

[moyden]

Turn your cookies off.

[UB355]

I use Netscape 7.01. It includes a pop-up blocker.

[o_zarkman44]

My wife had a computer hijacked by GoHIP.com after her son used it. The browser was hijacked to the GoHip start up page, even after changing the IE start up preferences. Her computer was then made useless by a popup blister that floods the browser with pop up ads faster than they could be deleted. Ad aware software did not help. We ended up wiping the HD and reformatting. We did contemplate legal action.

[wildbill]

Some of these things pirate your browser to the point where they won't LET you change your default. I picked one up on Iwon.com about a year ago. They professed to have no knowledge of it. I found it was created/addressed out of China.

[Positive]

I noticed that it was a "kraut" site and I saw something about guevara on the site; but that wasn't why I was there.

I got there at the end of a long search for a utility program to get rid of Spyware. The program worked for me and as far as I could see the program is neither nationalistic, communistic or anti-American.

...it's just a utility that worked for me...if you don't want or need it forgetaboutit.

[Positive]

"You could try changing your homepage through Tools -> Internet Options -> Home Page"

You obviously haven't been attacked by one of these little buggers. Good for you. But if one of these things gets into your system you can change your Internet Options to your hearts content - the spyware overrides or redirects your instructions and does what it wants to do...which seems to be to stick some advertisement in your face that you've probably seen a million times already and don't care to see again.

[Keith in Iowa]

SpyWare Search & Destroy

[Positive]

"Turn your cookies off.

These aren't cookies - I regularly delete all of the cookies on my system. (I then have to re-login to FreeRepublic and other websites I like)

These things are embedded somehow in the Windows System Registry which is very tricky territory for most people, including me. The Spyware then launches itself and goes about its unsavory business.

[Keith in Iowa]

OOPS! - That's SpyBot - not SpyWare...AdAware did not clean one of those nasty buggers off my system - Spybot did.

[Positive]

"I use Netscape 7.01. It includes a pop-up blocker.

These aren't pop-ups either. I have Ad-Subtract on my system and that didn't stop them from getting in. There are freeware/shareware programs that carry this type of code in their installation or setup routines, that's one way they get into a machine. There are other ways too I'm told.