# Onine dialer auto-installed itself

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/onine-dialer-auto-installed-itself/163209>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 21, 2003, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/onine-dialer-auto-installed-itself/163209 "2003-03-21T20:59:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![DaddyTimesTwo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@DaddyTimesTwo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaddyTimesTwo)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2003, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/onine-dialer-auto-installed-itself/163209/1 "2003-03-21T20:59:51Z")

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Surfing (for **what** is not really _germaine_, OK? 😉 ) the other night I was hit yet again by a program which installed itself, hung up my ISP and tried to dial Germany, I think. I run Norton SystemWorks, which I thought was pretty good because it’s caught similar kinds of things in the past, and it didn’t give me any help at all. This is at least the third time this same (the icons it creates look the same at least) company has got to me. It gets put on the Start bar, the system tray and the desktop and also in the dial-up networking folder. What security level or what steps do I take to prevent this in the future? And, yes, thank you, I know that changing my surfing habits is one solution.

Thanks.

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**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2003, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/onine-dialer-auto-installed-itself/163209/2 "2003-03-21T21:06:47Z")

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It happened to me once, too, and I got a $55 phone bill that month. Just call the phone company and have them block the international calling option. Worked for me.

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**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2003, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/onine-dialer-auto-installed-itself/163209/3 "2003-03-21T21:08:58Z")

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Try installing [AdAware](http://www.lavasoftusa.com/) or [Spybot Search and Destroy](http://security.kolla.de/). They should clean the files from your computer.

The best way to avoid this is **never** click if a popup window says it’s installing software, unless you have installed the software yourself. But if it pops up during surfing, it’s probably a bad thing.

Also be careful about what you DO download.

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**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2003, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/onine-dialer-auto-installed-itself/163209/4 "2003-03-22T00:53:28Z")

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Since you asked, I recommend RC’s answer, followed by either updating IE with the latest patches for all the latest holes, or switching to a [different](http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/download.jsp) [browser](http://www.mozilla.org/). ActiveX is the funnel through which all web-borne atrocities are installed.

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**Author:** ![DaddyTimesTwo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@DaddyTimesTwo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaddyTimesTwo)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2003, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/onine-dialer-auto-installed-itself/163209/5 "2003-03-22T14:46:09Z")

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I am savvy enough to prevent an international call from being completed, so th call never was complete, but it was most curious that the program just installed itself so quickly. Anyway, thanks for the advice. I’m gonna download the spybot thing.