# will you people please LEARN (spyware)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [January 10, 2004, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799 "2004-01-10T06:36:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@NBIT33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NBIT33)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/1 "2004-01-10T06:36:23Z")
Prompted by this thread:
[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=234234](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=234234)
People - PLEASE
Stop with the “my computer has been taken over by ads/pop-ups/rogue search engines” help requests. How many freaking times is this question going to be asked & answered?
No, it is not mysterious.
No, it is not an error.
No, you are not the first person to see it.
Yes, it can be fixed very easily.
How can there really still be people who don’t know about spyware?
And I’m not just talking about this board. About every day I hear “I have to get rid of my 1 year old computer because it is really slow when surfing and lots of ads pop up, when I’m not even on a website with advertising.”
I installed and ran Adaware for one user and it had 137 hits! 137 spyware products! How can you let your machine get that messed up?
---
### Author:  [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/2 "2004-01-10T06:42:02Z")
Why _should_ people know about spyware? It is afterall sneaky crap which installs it’self without any user interaction.
And ‘let?’ ‘LET?’ you’re blaming the victims? I can’t stress enough how passionately I hate the whole sneaky dishonest obnoxious evil that is popups. I feel sorry for the poor souls who’s computers have been infested with this shite.
---
### Author:  [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/3 "2004-01-10T06:43:24Z")
Only 137? When I ran Spybot and AdAware on my sister in law’s computer, I had well over 2000 hits. Amazing the damn thing would boot.
---
### Author:  [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/4 "2004-01-10T06:43:35Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by NBIT33 \*
> \*\*I installed and ran Adaware for one user and it had 137 hits! 137 spyware products! How can you let your machine get that messed up? \*\*
I can beat that. After 3 months of not checking, I went back and did my mom’s computer.
326 components removed.
---
### Author:  [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/5 "2004-01-10T06:43:48Z")
P.S. Where can I get adaware?
(yeah I know, google, or put in [www.adaware.com](http://www.adaware.com) and see what happens, but I may as well ask)
---
### Author:  [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/6 "2004-01-10T06:45:17Z")
[this](http://www.ada-ware.com/) is what happened. oh well.
---
### Author:  [@NBIT33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NBIT33)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/7 "2004-01-10T06:47:11Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Lobsang \*
> \*\*
>
> And ‘let?’ ‘LET?’ you’re blaming the victims? I can’t stress enough how passionately I hate the whole sneaky dishonest obnoxious evil that is popups. I feel sorry for the poor souls who’s computers have been infested with this shite. \*\*
I blaming the victims for not knowing what it is when they see it, and not spending .01 seconds to see if it is a common, heard of before problem. They all start out with “help me with a strange, weird problem…” Kind of like driving a car past Empty, then calling a mechanic to say “my car was working fine and all of a sudden it won’t go. have you ever heard of that? what do I do?”
---
### Author:  [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/8 "2004-01-10T06:50:24Z")
OK, so you are pitting the same kind of behaviour as those who post ATMB questions such as “why are the boards so slow”.
In that case, I understand. But I still think we should feel sorry for the victims of spyware. What pure cheek these things have to install themselves. They should be classified as viruses.
---
### Author:  [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/9 "2004-01-10T06:52:35Z")
**NBIT** , they ask because they don’t know. Everybody has to learn sometime. _You_ had to learn sometime. You weren’t born with all encompassing knowledge computers. When you first learned, did the guy jump down your throat about how stupid you were? Also, I am positive there are some gaps in your knowledge (be it medicine, physics, art, literature, whatever) others might consider unbelievably simple. It’s that way with everybody.
We fight ignorance here. If it’s an honest question, we answer it.
---
### Author:  [@NBIT33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NBIT33)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/10 "2004-01-10T06:56:08Z")
Monkey, despite what your mother told you, there are stupid questions.
---
### Author:  [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/11 "2004-01-10T07:03:50Z")
Oh, you insulting little newbie twit.
I know what fucking **Adaware** , **Spybot** and all the rest are. I built my computer. I have written programs for my computer. I KNOW HOW TO USE MY COMPUTER!
Maybe if you had paid attention to the thread you would have realized (or maybe if you knew anything about how those programs worked) that my particular problem is not something that is diagnosed and/or fixed by any spyware scrubbers (at least not any that I know of).
Those programs, primarily, look for things that have been added to your computer, not _settings that have been changed_.
To use a simple example: say some nasty website manages to change your homepage without your noticing. Run all of the scrubbers you want, they will not detect or fix this. You must change the homepage back yourself. I assume that something similar has happened to me and my computer (actually my computer does not have this problem, it is my parents computer that I am trying to fix. My father installs any old thing he sees.).
So in closing, go to hell pretentious nincompoop.
---
### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/12 "2004-01-10T07:13:16Z")
Hell, I didn’t even think about it until a couple of months ago when IE kept shutting down on me. I asked in GQ, and someone suggested Ad-Aware. (Although that didn’t help-I ended up having to upgrade to the latest version of IE).
---
### Author:  [@Fugazi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fugazi)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/13 "2004-01-10T07:39:51Z")
What is this “spyware” of which you speak?
That’s one of many reasons I switched to Linux.
---
### Author:  [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/14 "2004-01-10T07:48:29Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Fugazi \*
> \*\*What is this “spyware” of which you speak?
>
> That’s one of many reasons I switched to Linux. \*\*
Sure, if they can’t afford a usefull OS, why bother sending them ads?
_runs and hides behind Tux pillow_
---
### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/15 "2004-01-10T11:17:40Z")
I have been running win9X and Internet Explorer since they first came out and I have never used antivirus software nor Adaware-type software. I have configured my browser and email to tight security (disable active X etc) and I have _never_, ever had a virus or spy crap. Maybe I’m just lucky but I doubt it. I do visit my fair share of porn sites and practice safe sex too. (I have not heard of anyone getting an STD from a computer screen)
---
### Author:  [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/16 "2004-01-10T11:51:09Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by NBIT33 \*
> \*\*Monkey, despite what your mother told you, there are stupid questions. \*\*
Yeah; and stupid answers, such as “for crying out loud it’s OBVIOUS that some maliciously formed dialog box has caused you to allow a trojan-style program to manipulate your computer for nefarious ends - any fool would know that you need a signature-based pc scanner that looks for nasty things and NO OF COURSE your virus checker doesn’t do that you need something ELSE, don’t you know ANYTHING!?”
Over here in the nice world, the exchange runs:
“What’s with all these pop ups?”
“Try ad-aware.”
“Hey, cool, thanks!”
Strangely, most people don’t have a problem with this.
---
### Author:  [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/17 "2004-01-10T13:02:23Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by sailor \*
> \*\*I have been running win9X and Internet Explorer since they first came out and I have never used antivirus software nor Adaware-type software. I have configured my browser and email to tight security (disable active X etc) and I have _never_, ever had a virus or spy crap. Maybe I’m just lucky but I doubt it. I do visit my fair share of porn sites and practice safe sex too. (I have not heard of anyone getting an STD from a computer screen) \*\*
If you’ve never used an antivirus program, how do you know that you don’t have a virus? Not all viruses make themselves known; some sit silently in the background doing nothing for a long while, and when they do run, they simply spread without any flashy messages or warnings. There are thousands upon thousands of them out there, and the majority of them don’t get installed through a browser or are bundled by some script-kiddies through Outlook e-mail.
Just curious.
---
### Author:  [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/18 "2004-01-10T14:42:59Z")
Something for the newbie computer users which can aid in defeating spyware programs to begin with:
When you install software, _ALWAYS_ use customization, if available. This will give you a list of software that is being installed. Ex: Bearshare is always trying to install some shit called “Save.exe”, fuck that. If you use the customized install, you can uncheck it.
---
### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/19 "2004-01-10T14:47:30Z")
Skipmagic, I was asked the same exact question about a week ago in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=232874). If I ever need to run anything in my computer first I run it by any of the online checkers line PCPitstop or, my preferred one, [Panda](http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/com/). You can scan your entire computer and it is free and always up to date. So i do check my computer once in a while when I feel like doing some housekeeping.
---
### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2004, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799/20 "2004-01-10T15:08:23Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Athena \*
> Only 137? When I ran Spybot and AdAware on my sister in law’s computer, I had well over 2000 hits. Amazing the damn thing would boot.
Ladies & Gentlemen, calm down a bit. It’s very likely that most of those 137 or 2000 “hits” were only cookies, not invasive malware programs. While you may object to cookies as an violation of privacy, as I do, they are next-to-harmless compared to a rogue program hijacking your search strings or creating junk popups.
After having learned the principle long ago, I never find rogue progs in my machines, but a monthly scan with adaware always turns up a few dozen cookies. It’s a fact of computing life; wipe 'em out and start again.
FYI, [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=228730) includes list of scanning & repair tools for this kind of badware.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-people-please-learn-spyware/223799.md?page=2)