Spyware Caution

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candystripper -> Spyware Caution (2/7/2006 3:51:17 AM)
i have learnt the hard way that certain sites attach spyware to Y/your pc, which can slow it's operation by as much as 500%. Note: spyware is not a virus, trojan horse, worm, malware, or other pc security problem. 1. Smileys. This generally installs Hotbar; anyone needing the Hotbar uninstaller may email me. 2. Free fonts and clip art. 3. Free or sample porn. 4. Surveys and free offers if surveys are taken. If Y/you do this, be sure to use a hotmail account to protect Y/yourself from spam. 5. Free proxies and bouncers (used to help conceal an IP address). i hope other members will add to this list. Spyware can also "hijack" Y/your browser, resetting Y/your home page and involuntarilly redirecting Y/your pc to different, more burdensome sites. Be especially aware that spyware can override any pop-up blocker Y/you have running. To my knowledge, there is no real-time "spyware blocker". Many good, free scans may be run; remember to update them first. Spybot Ad-aware Pest Patrol (but removal of spyware requires payment.) trendmicro housecall Best wishes. candystripper

Gauge -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/7/2006 2:18:05 PM)
On the contrary... spyware is a security threat to your PC. Keyloggers fall into the category of spyware. Browser hijackers and other malware items make changes to your computer without permission and can direct you to sites that will infect your computer with all sorts of nasty stuff. Anything that can change something in your computer that you do not want changed can be a security risk. There is a program out called SpywareBlaster that actually blocks spyware from being installed on your PC. Spybot Search & Destroy also has a feature that does that. The best defense against spyware and malware is only deal with sites you trust. Also, if you didn't request something to be installed on your PC and a box pops up and tells you to click and install it... don't. If it is something you need it will come from a reputable site, not from an unknown site. When in doubt... don't install it. Internet safety is very important and getting updated tools to combat the threats is critical or you are just asking for trouble.

collieloveruk -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/7/2006 2:25:16 PM)
try this for real time blocking of spyware, called spyware blaster...... i have been using it for about a year since my son discovered he could view naked women on the pc [:@] its pretty effective and although i run adaware and spybot on a regular basis i get very little spyware at all now............ oh and best of all its FREE http://www.download.com/SpywareBlaster/3000-8022_4-10486084.html?tag=lst-0-1

FelinePersuasion -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/7/2006 3:09:00 PM)
Yes spyware is a security issue, Spyware allows places to track your info what sites you go to and all. And keyloggers which are spyware logs keystrokes, like your password. Spyware's not harmless. it is a security issue. There are also programs to stop it programs that keep it from getting in not just cleaning it once it's off. I'll have to ask the name of it though.

mnottertail -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/7/2006 3:22:18 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: collieloveruk try this for real time blocking of spyware, called spyware blaster...... i have been using it for about a year since my son discovered he could view naked women on the pc Are you saying if I get this software, I can view naked women on the pc? can I have more than one copy of it at a time, then? I am so in!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ron

FelinePersuasion -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/7/2006 10:41:22 PM)
Webroot spy sweeper actually stops them coming in not just cleans them after they get on I think you have to buy a subscription but I'll be getting bit defender so I'll be getting it for four months free

SirKenin -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/7/2006 11:27:59 PM)
This is really old news, but many people might not be aware of this nonetheless. 90% of My residential business is cleaning this crap off of people's computers, so that will tell you something. There is a website devoted to this that I use quite frequently... http://www.pchell.com/ If you are having problems with your computers or need any type of removal tools, that is where to go. If you use XP, a combination of SP2, Microsoft Antispyware Beta and Spybot Seek and Destroy are deadly effective. That is all you need. You do not need to pay these con artists that want to extort money out of you to use their programs that other people have released for free. Many of these things are installed with ActiveX. This is only available in Internet Explorer. However, if you use your head you can protect your computer and still use ActiveX, which is quite necessary for a lot of the multimedia and interactive content on the internet. If you are lazy you can download Opera or Firefox (although Opera kills Firefox for speed). The rest use javascript, which Opera and Firefox are just as vulnerable to. This is where the MS AS Beta and Spybot come in handy. If you are going to use those, though, you might as well stick with IE. Why confuse the issue and add more junk to your PC? The most important think is to remember that nothing in life is free. Any idiot website that says FREE SMILEYS!!! is conning you. Look at it this way. 99.97548% of the internet population is in it to line their pockets. There is nothing in it for them to offer anything for free. Make sure you read between the lines... Especially AVOID BEARSHARE and KAZAA. Do NOT download these products. They pollute your PC with garbage that chokes the life out of your internet connection. They are garbage. Avoid Smiley Central. Avoid Screensavers.com like the plague. Avoid any warez, hacking and cracking sites like astalavista, which leads you to a bunch of sites that disguise spyware and vicious virii like cracks and serial numbers. Avoid any of those "free" porn galleries and anything that says "banned". They will download javascript on your computer that you will wish you never ran across. The only antispyware program worth mentioning other than what I have already mentioned is Ewido. That one you do have to pay for, but it simply destroys any other paid-for product out there. It also has a free mode that will do scans, just not real time protection. It is deadly effective. I highly recommend it.

IronBear -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/8/2006 8:55:18 AM)
Ok candy sweet, I posteed this on the wrong thread so I'm posting it here for you anyway. Regarding spyware and other malevolent items like keyloggers. First get you arse to the Lavasoft site (I think www.lavasoft.com) and get twp free programs. The first is called "Ad-Aware SE Personal" This version is free and when i first put it on the puter it found 800 adware, malware and keyloggers in the fiorst 14 days. it was easy to quarantine and then remove them and block them for the future. I'd run it daily including the updates. The other program which is also free is SpywareBlaster from Lavasoft as well. this program will deal with the active-X programs which may be unauthorised and are used to dump links on your puter. (I have over 60 porn sites one night which this program got rid of for me.)

windchymes -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/8/2006 10:30:33 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: SirKenin This is really old news, but many people might not be aware of this nonetheless. 90% of My residential business is cleaning this crap off of people's computers, so that will tell you something. There is a website devoted to this that I use quite frequently... http://www.pchell.com/ If you are having problems with your computers or need any type of removal tools, that is where to go. If you use XP, a combination of SP2, Microsoft Antispyware Beta and Spybot Seek and Destroy are deadly effective. That is all you need. You do not need to pay these con artists that want to extort money out of you to use their programs that other people have released for free. Many of these things are installed with ActiveX. This is only available in Internet Explorer. However, if you use your head you can protect your computer and still use ActiveX, which is quite necessary for a lot of the multimedia and interactive content on the internet. If you are lazy you can download Opera or Firefox (although Opera kills Firefox for speed). The rest use javascript, which Opera and Firefox are just as vulnerable to. This is where the MS AS Beta and Spybot come in handy. If you are going to use those, though, you might as well stick with IE. Why confuse the issue and add more junk to your PC? The most important think is to remember that nothing in life is free. Any idiot website that says FREE SMILEYS!!! is conning you. Look at it this way. 99.97548% of the internet population is in it to line their pockets. There is nothing in it for them to offer anything for free. Make sure you read between the lines... Especially AVOID BEARSHARE and KAZAA. Do NOT download these products. They pollute your PC with garbage that chokes the life out of your internet connection. They are garbage. Avoid Smiley Central. Avoid Screensavers.com like the plague. Avoid any warez, hacking and cracking sites like astalavista, which leads you to a bunch of sites that disguise spyware and vicious virii like cracks and serial numbers. Avoid any of those "free" porn galleries and anything that says "banned". They will download javascript on your computer that you will wish you never ran across. The only antispyware program worth mentioning other than what I have already mentioned is Ewido. That one you do have to pay for, but it simply destroys any other paid-for product out there. It also has a free mode that will do scans, just not real time protection. It is deadly effective. I highly recommend it. I wish I had read this thread BEFORE now...... My computer had slowed down dramatically and extremely annoyingly, and I was suspecting spyware. I did a search for a free download for a spyware uninstaller and I came across "CrapCleaner", or CCleaner. It seems, so far, to have done the trick...I had a LOT of crap files and cookies in my system, even though I regularly clean out my temp internet files and cookies files. My computer is just zipping right along now. (I just did this mere minutes ago....I came in here to test my results.) Are you (or anyone here) familiar with CrapCleaner/CCleaner? Am I going to be sorry? Another thing I was worried about was downloading a spyware uninstaller that was bogus and actually might attach yet MORE spyware to my system. Is that a legitimate worry, or am I thinking too hard? Thanks!

windchymes -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/8/2006 10:34:27 AM)
Another question....what about the online poker sites? I have a friend who plays at several of them when he visits. Thanks.

SirKenin -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/8/2006 10:35:30 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: windchymes I wish I had read this thread BEFORE now...... My computer had slowed down dramatically and extremely annoyingly, and I was suspecting spyware. I did a search for a free download for a spyware uninstaller and I came across "CrapCleaner", or CCleaner. It seems, so far, to have done the trick...I had a LOT of crap files and cookies in my system, even though I regularly clean out my temp internet files and cookies files. My computer is just zipping right along now. (I just did this mere minutes ago....I came in here to test my results.) Are you (or anyone here) familiar with CrapCleaner/CCleaner? Am I going to be sorry? Another thing I was worried about was downloading a spyware uninstaller that was bogus and actually might attach yet MORE spyware to my system. Is that a legitimate worry, or am I thinking too hard? Thanks! I hate to say this, but that is a VERY legitimate worry. There are a ton of spyware removal programs out there that masquerade as legitimate but instead install their own spyware. For a complete list see this link: http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm

blackpearl81 -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/8/2006 11:12:07 AM)
Also... Giving your Temporary Internet Files a good flushing once every week helps tremendously... I use this program, that gets a lot of stuff that "delete offline content" and 'delete cookies" in IE misses.. try this.. run it once.. and you'd be shocked at how much space it frees up http://www.stevengould.org/software/cleanup/

Tantalus42 -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/8/2006 8:07:14 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: SirKenin The rest use javascript, which Opera and Firefox are just as vulnerable to. This is where the MS AS Beta and Spybot come in handy. If you are going to use those, though, you might as well stick with IE. Why confuse the issue and add more junk to your PC? Because IE pretty much blows chunks. Seriously. Why keep using crap like that when Opera and Mozilla are so much better? Another good one that's commercial is Pandasoft, but like the man said, you can't go wrong with Spybot and Microsoft Antispyware (first program they did right from the get go and didn't require 3 versions to finally work grin). And they're free... so get the damn things. Install the and use them. Now!! Because frankly I'm sick and damded tired of spending my days cleaning this crap off people's PC's because they just HAD to download the Paris sex video off Kazaa. Geesh.... not only unsafe, but she's a total dog, what a waste of bandwidth.

SirKenin -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/8/2006 8:47:11 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Tantalus42 quote: ORIGINAL: SirKenin The rest use javascript, which Opera and Firefox are just as vulnerable to. This is where the MS AS Beta and Spybot come in handy. If you are going to use those, though, you might as well stick with IE. Why confuse the issue and add more junk to your PC? Because IE pretty much blows chunks. Seriously. Why keep using crap like that when Opera and Mozilla are so much better? Another good one that's commercial is Pandasoft, but like the man said, you can't go wrong with Spybot and Microsoft Antispyware (first program they did right from the get go and didn't require 3 versions to finally work grin). And they're free... so get the damn things. Install the and use them. Now!! Because frankly I'm sick and damded tired of spending my days cleaning this crap off people's PC's because they just HAD to download the Paris sex video off Kazaa. Geesh.... not only unsafe, but she's a total dog, what a waste of bandwidth. Ahh, but IE blows Firefox out of the water for speed and website compatibility, the two things I consider most important. [:)]

Tantalus42 -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/9/2006 2:39:38 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: SirKenin Ahh, but IE blows Firefox out of the water for speed and website compatibility, the two things I consider most important. [:)] Not true, I find Mozilla work as fast - if not faster - and with pretty much every site I've wanted to browse. And since it also provides better security against some forms of spyware and viruses - something I consider signifacantly more important given the growing number of technical unsavvy users in the world - it's clearly the superior technology. Hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development, and MS still gets beat by a free program. Go figure. I will say this, though, their anti-spyware program is a gem. I guess they must have had that developed by an independent agency of some kind. [:D]

IronBear -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/9/2006 3:08:43 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: SirKenin quote: ORIGINAL: Tantalus42 quote: ORIGINAL: SirKenin The rest use javascript, which Opera and Firefox are just as vulnerable to. This is where the MS AS Beta and Spybot come in handy. If you are going to use those, though, you might as well stick with IE. Why confuse the issue and add more junk to your PC? Because IE pretty much blows chunks. Seriously. Why keep using crap like that when Opera and Mozilla are so much better? Another good one that's commercial is Pandasoft, but like the man said, you can't go wrong with Spybot and Microsoft Antispyware (first program they did right from the get go and didn't require 3 versions to finally work grin). And they're free... so get the damn things. Install the and use them. Now!! Because frankly I'm sick and damded tired of spending my days cleaning this crap off people's PC's because they just HAD to download the Paris sex video off Kazaa. Geesh.... not only unsafe, but she's a total dog, what a waste of bandwidth. Ahh, but IE blows Firefox out of the water for speed and website compatibility, the two things I consider most important. [:)] I dont dispute your warnings Kenin however I will still advocate both Ad-Aware SE Personal which is the free version and SpywareBlaster as well as Spybot. I run all three on computers at home which run either IE or Firefox. Personally, I prefer Firefox now as better and it doesn't have the nasty habbit which IE does of sending you catche back to Microsoft if you double click. However I'm the first to admit that I am not a computer expert and only have some expertise in specific programs. However the programs I run and reccomend are those recommended to me by several folk who are considered expert on the software industry here especially in the Governmebt security areas.. Still we can always agree to disagree as it is a matter of personal taste. It's all in the game and how you play it........

SirKenin -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/9/2006 10:27:24 AM)
True enough. Besides, the world will not end if we disagree. [;)]

SirKenin -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/9/2006 10:30:35 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Tantalus42 quote: ORIGINAL: SirKenin Ahh, but IE blows Firefox out of the water for speed and website compatibility, the two things I consider most important. [:)] Not true, I find Mozilla work as fast - if not faster - and with pretty much every site I've wanted to browse. And since it also provides better security against some forms of spyware and viruses - something I consider signifacantly more important given the growing number of technical unsavvy users in the world - it's clearly the superior technology. Hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development, and MS still gets beat by a free program. Go figure. I will say this, though, their anti-spyware program is a gem. I guess they must have had that developed by an independent agency of some kind. [:D] It is true. Do some actual tests. The fastest is Opera. The next is IE. (IE 7 is even faster). The last is Mozilla, especially 1.5, which is actually slow in other areas too. I have all of them. IE is by far the most compatible with all websites and multimedia/interactive content. Opera and Firefox are the same underneath. You can almost guarantee that if you are designing any decent webpage and testing it with IE that it will be all screwed up on Mozilla based browsers. I have banged My head on My desk more than once trying to code for all three, and My website is not all that complicated.

ShadeDiva -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/9/2006 10:41:43 PM)
Yeah but you have to pay for Opera. I run multiple adware and spyware and virus protection proggies. AdAware, SpyBot, BHOdaemon, SpyBlaster, SpyDoctor, Trend, Microsofts new beta, Norton, and just recently ewido. They ALL find things the others miss. ewido and Trend kick ass though. SpyDoctor is nice too. I like them enough to pay for the suckers, and they do a marvelous job, and many of them block shit before it gets to your 'puter. I scrub my machine at LEAST 7 times a week, and often several times a day, updating before I run them. I do light scans mostly but do sic a full scan on my boxes several times a week. I also clear my caches and temp files religiously, often every day. I've been virus free for years. I also surf smart. That helps a lot too. As for IE being the leading browser... no more. Most every techie and coder I know uses Opera or Mozilla, and that's what the site designing world on the code end is very quickly shifting gears to code for. IE's reign as the best free browser has ended I think and I was a DIEhard IE fan for yearsssssssss. But once you use mozilla and see the level of control it gives you when it comes to browsing - most folks won't look back. It does EVERYTHING IE could do, and does it faster and smoother, is more secure, and does lots of things IE has never done. All the stats I've seen on sites that have that ability (and on the sites I am privileged to see) show that about 60-70% of the systems that are using the newer operating systems are browsing the sites with mozilla/netscape/firefox. Most of the php code that is being generated that has an eye for security and speed is being coded for mozilla, and the techies and coders are starting to say when folks complain, tough, we are no longer coding for IE as the primary option. In about 5 years that realization will start to make itself more apparent in the user end, but turthfully it's already doing that. I always ask when folks say mozilla is too slow or isn't as good as IE what OS they are running, when's the last time they did regular maintenence on their box, what do they use for a connection, what version of mozilla did they try, and exactly what do they think IE has over mozilla? Usually find out it's not mozilla but other factors that is the culprit. JMO, FWIIW.

ShadeDiva -> RE: Spyware Caution (2/9/2006 10:48:32 PM)
Oh yeah. Something I almost NEVER see asked or suggested when folks say their machine is trudging along ... when was the LAST time you defragged? You really should defrag at the least once to twice a month. More if you use your PC a lot and you are saving things to disk, and loading and deleting programs and files frequently. If you use your PC hard like I do, start doing it weekly. Do it when you log off and go to sleep. Seriously. Defragging is important for a well running box and most folks don't even do it twice a year, if at all. LOVE and care for your harddrive(s) and it will usually love you a little better. lolol.

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