Computer question: it's randomly opening Netscape.

Factual Questions
#1

Note: I would recommend not clicking on these links. I add them in to provide as much information as I can in the hopes of answering the question.
For the love of Gabor, please please help me.

I went to a website my sister told me about to play a few games online. It was www.uproar.com.
Now, when you go to sites like this, you expect to get cookies. I’m fine with that. What I didn’t expect is for it to try to take over my entire computer system.
It installed some sort of date manager system onto my computer and threw it on my desktop icon list. After some work, I think that I got it off my computer.
More annoying than that is the pop up ads it now produces. I work in IE. Every so often (3 times in the last 15 minutes now) it will open up Netscape specifically to advertise to me. This is, to put it mildly, completely abhorrent to me.
I don’t want Netscape open. I don’t want another program running. I don’t want to wait 15 seconds while the Netscape program loads up and takes up half my screen in the process. I DO NOT WANT A NEW PROGRAM TO LAUNCH WITHOUT MY PERMISSION! Gah.
This last time it launched to this website: http://image73.eguard.com/randomlogic/15760-1/newrlogic.html

which is an advertisement for a casino.

I’ve cleaned out my cache files. I’ve cleaned out my cookie files. I can’t get rid of this. What can I do?

#2

You need to get and run some spyware.

#3

I guess I should have said ANTI-spyware. Just google on “spyware”, there rae various programs that you can download that will detect and clean up such nonsense.

#4

Go to http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ and download and run AdAware. That should clean all that crap off your system.

#5

The exact same link popped up on my screen as well.
http://image73.eguard.com/randomlog.../newrlogic.html

Another annoying pop are these Gator/Gain adverts.

Is there no pop-up buster, that really works.

#6

Oh I needed to add, I installed RegCleaner http://www.vtoy.fi/jv16/shtml/software.shtml and deleted eguard from the registry, I haven’t seen that popup for a while now.

#7

http://www.proxomitron.org/

Not only does it block pop-ups, it can also be set to block the malignant auto-install scripts that put spyware on your machine.

Changing your browser to to mozilla ( http://www.mozilla.org/ ) also helps.

#8

I’ll take a look into some of these this afternoon. I didn’t think anti-popup ad software would work because these technically aren’t popups. They’re entirely new programs being launched.
The spyware sounds like a good idea though.

Allow me to be paranoid for a moment longer. What kind of programs does the spyware put into your computer system? Who watches the watcher?

#9

I think you’re getting things a little mixed up Enderw24.

What you want to install is **anti-**spyware, like AdAware. It is continually updated to kill the likes of which you appear to have installed in your system.

As to who watches the watcher. Well, plenty people. AdAware is used by lots of people who know about these things and could go about removing stuff manually if need be. But AdAware just makes the process easier. If they suddenly went over to the dark side and started installing their own spyware you’d soon hear about it!

All programs like AdAware are are scanners that search your hard disk and system registery for recognised spyware, and then asks if you want it to remove them. Unlike spyware it doesn’t run in the background all the time unknown to you. You have to run it and it doesn’t do anything without asking you first.

A good sign that AdAware is on the side of good, and effective with it, is some spyware and ‘scumware’ deliberately uninstalls it if they finds it on your computer. Welcome to the new battleground; your computer, and all in aid of the noble idea that you must be encouraged to visit some crummy online casino and lose your money.

I’m disappointed that Uproar have stooped to this though. I used to hang out there quite a bit, don’t think I’ll ever go back if this is what they’re up to now.

#10

Well, to be fair, I cannot be absolutely certain that it is uproar that did this to me. All I know is that these program launchings started happening the same day I visited them for the first time. Occam’s razor and all.

#11

I think I’m going to need a bigger boat.

This afternoon I downloaded AdAware and took off everything it found. Netscape still kept popping up with ads, this time for Netflix.

So about 20 minutes ago I DLed RegCleaner and took off a good hunk of what it found. Still no go. Netscape just popped up again.

I need some industrial strength C-4 here people. I need a hoover inside a black hole inside Anna Nicole Smith for the sheer sucking it would take to get this program out of my computer. What the heck am I even looking for and how can I take it out?

#12

Why not uninstall Netscape?

And if you can’t uninstall it, just go into the Netscape directory and start deleting files.

Either way, I thing AdAware would be interested in hearing what it is you’ve got if it can’t spot it.

#13

Futile Gesture, hmm, about that name…

Uninstalling and reinstalling Netscape would prob. have no effect (it’s a …). The program is probably not located under the Netscape directory either.

You have to find the program that is running, which in turns starts Netscape running. (It’s not the other way around.)

Do a Ctrl-Alt-Del to see what is running, check each one out thoroughly. Check all the programs that load at startup, etc. Running a scheduler? Check what it’s doing. And on and on.

Also, try to Find all files newer than just before the date when this started.

Get and install Zone Alarm or similar firewall program and see what address is being used to download the ads from. (That would tell you a lot.)