Spyware everywhere

[lost-and-found]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, I just wanna beat the s@!7 out of the guy that created teh concept of hiding a program in someone's computer, which downloads some thousands more little programs and then starts popping ads on every mouseclick, and deforms my screen with searchbars......!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guys, I'm in real hot water. for the last few weeks or so I've been removing new spyware every day, sometimes several times a day. I run spybot every fifteen minutes now, and it supposedly cleans my PC, but the stuff keeps on coming back. I've ran ad-aware and same. I have kazaa lite installed, but i don't think it's causing the problem, as I've had it installed for the last two years without any hitches. I'm getting random ads pop out, I'm getting new toolbars in my IE window. I have random programs running in my task manager. I delete everything supposedly, and new stuff keeps on coming back. I've got ZA running, PC-CIllin, my router firewall, etc. I've got a win 98se system, IE 5.5 (with all the updates), a DSL connection, and a very angry face.

Any help will be appreciated.

[vass0922]

There is a VERY simple answer
Stay away from IE

Its a honeypot for spyware

Use an alternative browser like Opera or Mozilla and you'll be spyware free
(assuming you're not installing software from kazaa or other shady places)

[lost-and-found]

aaaa... Ad-Aware has an update button, never noticed that... guess what, after updating and scanning I had 156 instances of spyware found on my PC, let's hope the update fixed it (I'll know in a few minutes)

[soulja]

i did the same, seems like its still here from me..

[Droppyale]

LOL.... IMO in most cases, it's the end-user's fault.


U have to keep up with the updates...

or forget about it.

[shawshank62]

dont forget to download the updates for spybot. All, consider using sygate personal firewall 5.0 (its free at www.download.com ) Its a lot more secure, and has lots more options than ZA, just switched over myself.

[ForestRanger]

Originally posted by vass0922
There is a VERY simple answer
Stay away from IE

Its a honeypot for spyware

Use an alternative browser like Opera or Mozilla and you'll be spyware free
(assuming you're not installing software from kazaa or other shady places)

Yeah, I'd definitely go with Opera. In my opinion, it is the absolute best browser out there. And since I started using it, I haven't gotten any additional spyware (and all the old stuff I got rid of with Spybot). And now my computer is a happy place.

[Telexen]

In MOST of those cases you're deleting cookies used in webpages...that's not a big deal...usually websites use them correctly in a non-harmful manner.

[ForestRanger]

Not necessarily...it depends on what kind of websites you visit. A lot of times, cookies may not necessarily be harmful, but they give you more ads, track you, etc.

[Beemer]

It's always a good idea to first empty your cache and delete only unwanted cookies before you run Adaware. To much user input if you don't. That's what I like about SpyBot S&D. Not so much user input.

Cheers!