Omg

[Brett]

I just spent the last 6 hours repairing my parents computer. They were having issues with popups so obviously I ran adaware it found 300+ possible problems, 87+ files. So I deleted them and thought all was good, right? No. After installing Zone Alarm, SpyBot, HyjackThis, and discovering 3 viruses and some really evil popup thing called look2me its gone! Something new to me was that even the Firewall had been hijacked to forward all ports to the computer!

Goodtimes,
-Brett

[Eric3a]

Just tell your parents to stop visiting porn sites...
Almost got myself into trouble with a buddy when I mentionned that to him. Hope you can take a joke!.

Viruses, security holes, etc:
One of the main reason I use Opera as a web browser, and not IE, and one of the main reason I'd love BTV's web admin to work in Opera.

Eric

[sloanja]

Originally Posted by Brett

They were having issues with popups so obviously I ran adaware it found 300+ possible problems, 87+ files.

I had a friend who were having the same problem. I ran PestPatrol (one of the best adware (not free) programs out there. I found over 8000 issues. yes that is right EIGHT THOUSAND.....

Needless to say, it took a couple of passes, reboots, and some patience to clean her system up.

[Brett]

Thanks Eric for the suggestion. I took a different approach though and told my parents that "hackers" could read the contents of their word documents and they should use better caution before hitting yes to activeX junk.

As for the 8000 issues that might have been grounds for a format.

-Brett

[fester]

2 days ago i deleted partition / reinstalled XP PRO OS since i notice some strange activity while i was gaming. prob fixed for now... I get alot of IDS hits now from south america, china, korea and one wireless isp in conecticut called 'towerstream' is totally hacked and keeps sending out portscans and other crap. It's all about network admins asleep at the wheel - cuz their servers are infected and they dont even know it!!

i hear W98 is now secure! lol

[crush157]

When I setup my Mom for DSL, I just went and bought a Dlink router/hub. By default the router does not allow any incoming requests. Best thing I ever did for $40.

[Rich A]

I use a program called "SpySweeper" by WebRoot. It's the best thing I've seen to date. It works like an auto-protect anti virus program. You can set it to do so and it will sit there just like Norton AV and remove every spy program before it gets into your system.

I used to use Ad-Aware .. SpySweeper continually finds and removes many of the spyware programs that Ad-Aware misses. Plus you have to run Ad-aware "after the fact" .. to remove the spy ware. SpySweeper kills them as they come in. Automatically.

I've often run Ad-Aware on my machine just to see if anything is on it. In the last six months I've never found ONE single bit of spyware.

This SpySweeper program works with it's autoprotect and will check for new spy definitions automatically. You can use it manually, but frankly why would you? It just sits there (very well behaved) in my system tray right next to Norton AV. Every now and then it will inform me there are new spyware definitions available. Plus it will do a "deep scan" (memory, registry, etc) automatically at a preset time you set up. I have mine set to do the scan right after my weekly Norton AV deep scan. So far it's been pretty good at killing the spyware because the weekly deep scan never finds anything.

It's not expensive but requires renewal of a subscription every year (like Norton AV). It hasn't been out more than a year and to date they haven't set a price for the annual subscription yet, but I'm told it will be very reasonable. (what-ever that means )

After a few months of never finding ANY spy-ware on my machine I no longer even worry about it. There is also an "option" where you can have your machine report new spyware to a national data base of known spyware. It also has options to use some of those databases for searching if you so choose.

Disclaimer .. no I don't have any ties to them and get no monetary gain from them. The computer repair shop (where I hang around) has been selling them about 25 to 30 a week. That's how I found out about it.

[mcowger]

Best I've seen was a students comnputer here with 23,000.

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by mcowger

Best I've seen was a students comnputer here with 23,000.

That student must spend a lot of time "researching" scholarly things on the web.

Probably has a 4.0 GPA .. <grin>

[mcowger]

Clearly