Or my parents PC to be precise. My own PC at uni seems to have been cleansed through the use of Spybot and the Google toolbar popup blocker. But my parents PC has a ton of pop ups that seem to come up whenever Internet Explorer is started or I click on any sort of link. I’ve tried the software mentioned above but it doesn’t seem to have as much effect on my parents PC. Is there anything more severe I can use or is there perhaps one small piece of dodgy software causing all this nuisance?
Hi Pushkin. You probably do have some spyware problems. I suspect you contracted “n-case” which is a terrible spyware program that has been proliferating heavily lately. I inadvertantly downloaded n-case while trying to close a flury of pop-ups, I must have accidentally ‘accepted’ the download. Anyway, I have a couple suggestions.
Download Ad-Aware and run it on your PC. I recommend deleting your cookies before running the scan in order to reduce the number of “bugs” it finds.
Not sure what operating system you use, or how computer efficient you are, but there are two sites which tell you about everything in your start-up menu and what processess you are running on your machine. They are here and here.
Please be careful when attempting to disable or turn off the applications. I am not an expert but I did not have any problems, if you’re not sure about something, just leave it running. If you do have n-case running on your machine you actually have to go to their site and download the uninstaller, even then it doesn’t take everything off but you should experience a reduction in the pop-ups.
It’s actually interesting to learn about all the stuff that’s running on your computer. Spend a little time at the links I’ve provided and I think you’ll find that your computer will run much faster with less hassle.
Run in safe mode (hold either left-shift or F8 while the computer boots - depends on your version of windows) and run all the scans from there. Only the essential programs will be running, so anything else can’t try out self-preservation as some viruses/adware can attempt.
If you need detailed help, go to http://www.spywareinfo.com. Download Hijackthis and run it. Save the log and then post it on the Spywareinfo forum above. You should get an answer for tricky spyware that evades Ad-Aware or Spybot.
Go to this page at the TechGuy Forums and follow $teve’s advice. After doing all that stuff, you can post your hijackthis log there and ask if it is clean. (I’m sure they’ll appreciate you making the effort first.)
