Help!I got spyware or something!

Elwe_Singollo · Post by **Elwe_Singollo** » 16 Nov 2003, 14:12

I seem to have picked some of that **** from somewhere. I remember a MyWay bar appearing in my IE.I disabled it,then uninstalled the program.But I noticed that many adds were popping up in places where I had never seen them,like here and google.the same adds every time.generally about finding old friends or something.suspicious,I searched my registry, and deleted every key that contained the myway in it,then deleted myway from my program files folder which still had stuff in it.and those adds still pop up.and these forums seem to now crash IE often after all that,which they never used to.I could have got the spyware by installing this download program called tukati or something.uninstalled that as well.any ideas on how to stop this from happening?I have norton internet security,which is supposed to block popups,but doesnt seem to work.besides,I want to treat the cause,not the symptoms.I have windows XP Sp1a,and latest security updates for windows and IE from microsoft.can I reinstall IE or something?any help would be appreciated,this is very irritating.

Madgic · Post by **Madgic** » 16 Nov 2003, 14:29

Elwe_Singollo have you got any software called Star Downloader that speeds up your downloads? Sometimes that also has hidden spyware and could be causing problems.

Post by **Thrall** » 16 Nov 2003, 14:39

Try SpyBot Search & Destroy - it's very decent freeware which is updatable with the latest threat-signatures, just like antivirus software. And before I forget, the Google Toolbar does a pretty fine job of stopping popups

Elwe_Singollo · Post by **Elwe_Singollo** » 16 Nov 2003, 15:20

THANKS!thats the popups gone!that spybot program is great,I couldnt believe how much stuff I had that was spying on me!I have download accelerator plus, which I knew has ads and all that, which I dont too much mind.but that has stopped now,the program works,but it cant spy on me or download new ads!these forums are still crashing though.anyone got any ideas on that?

DarkStreetDevelopment · Post by **DarkStreetDevelopment** » 16 Nov 2003, 17:03

I use Lavasoft AdAware which (IMHO) is the best spyware checker out there.

bb_matt · Post by **bb_matt** » 16 Nov 2003, 22:42

Ad-aware seems to do the job for me too - altho these days, it mostly catches doubleclick stuff.

It's also useful to get familiar with the processess running on your computer. Once you know the basics, you can quickly spot things you really don't want running "in the background", spyware or not.
For instance, Creative Labs drivers install software that runs a process called CThelper or something like that - it's redundant software for the most part and disabling it frees up memory.

You can also check what programs windows runs each time it starts up in various ways, for instance, in WinXP, Start -> Run ->
Then type

msconfig

Finally, do a search on windows for a file called hosts - in windows2000 and XP it's located in your windows folder in the System32/drivers/etc/ folder.

You can customise this to "block" ad addresses by telling windows that the IP addresses for listed domains is localhost :-

Code: Select all

127.0.0.1       ads.netomia.com
127.0.0.1       ads.newcity.com
127.0.0.1       ads.newcitynet.com
127.0.0.1       ads.ninemsn.com.au
127.0.0.1       ads.rediff.com
127.0.0.1       ads.satyamonline.com