Please Help! <Having IE 6 problems>

[hickens]

Hello,

I'm having trouble disabling third party extensions on my IE browser. It allows me to uncheck the box, but when I hit OK or Apply, the window idles for about 15 seconds and then never prompts me to restart. I restart anyway, and when i start IE back up again, the Enable third-party browser extensions box is checked *again*. I can't figure it out, and I keep getting these annoying ads every now and then.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

[johnnyis42]

try downloading and running spybot search and destroy, and adaware se. scan your system with both of them and remove what they find and see if it goes away.

[hickens]

Thanks for replying

I've had Spybot S&D for a while now, and it was usually really good at getting rid of all this crap. However this time around it finds stuff, says it removed them, and then a restart or two later, they show up in the scan again.

I downloaded Ad-Aware and ran a full system check about an hour ago and it found close to 300 things *emberassed* However, just like S&D, after I restarted I ran the "smart" scan or whatever that option says (not the full scan), and it found VX2 stuff. I just removed it and am presently running the "Scan for ADS" or whatever option before I restart again. It already says 18 files identified. *sighs*

Oh, I also downloaded Webroot Spy Sweeper and ran a check before my last restart.... had the same problem. This is driving me insane.

[johnnyis42]

there is a trick to spyware prevention and removal. some of the really tough stuff won't get fully eradicated by just the utilities alone, sometimes you need to do some more thing.

try booting into safe mode then running spybot from the command line. that will help with things like browser hijackers as they tend to load with explorer and ie.

also, hijack this! is a good site to check out. follow their suggestions to find the really tough stuff.

regular running of spyware scanners and also paying close attention to how you install software is about 90% of the prevention. when you do it right, the only things you run accross are tracking cookies. never install kazaa!

[hickens]

Thanks for your help! I posted my HJT log at the spywareinfo forums and am currently waiting for a response from anyone there. Hopefully it gets fixed. Oh, and is Kazaa Lite just as bad?

[johnnyis42]

nah, kazaa lite doesn't terrorize your system like kazaa. but the kazaa lite project no longer exists. they have a new project now, can't remember what it's called, reloaded or something.