Churnd

Those drivers don't support my card, which is a GeForce 4 Go (a laptop card). The only drivers I can use are the ones from Dell... believe me, I've tried. And the last time they updated that driver was about a year ago, so I guess I won't be able to use that feature.

Vato Loco

WOW! No spyware or adware at all on my computer no more, my computer is 2-3x faster and top of that downloaded a program that recovers my ram.

midiwall

So... with all the ideas and help you got in this thread, who are you thanking?

i.e.... what'd you end up doing?

ravencr

You did what my link said, right?

Chris

weezy

I feel your pain man .... I really do. :pat:

Andyman

Here's a little tip. I used the link that ravencr posted. Real good site! But don't forget if you get a random popup, right click on it, select properties, highlight the .com address, "ctrl-c" it.. Then under tools, internet options.. etc.. just like the page said.. paste it in and block it!

ravencr

Good point! It works awesome though, doesn't it?

Chris

Andyman

So far its been pretty cool! Heres a question tho, what is the relation between cookies and the pop ups? If a page loads a popup, why would stopping the cookie prevent the ad from loading? Wouldn't it just prevent the ad from storing a cookie?

-Andy

midiwall

Just so you guys understand what you're doing...

Entering these domains into a HOSTs file does NOTHING to get the spyware/adware/virus off of your machine. All you're doing is blocking the app from contacting it's server, thus stopping it from displaying anything.

The net effect is much the same as taking cold medicine - you're treating the symptoms without getting rid of what's making you sick.

You still have apps running on your machine that don't need to be there; they're using CPU power, eating memory, etc.

ravencr

The program gets rid of them, by the way!

Chris

nolongeraneqaddict

Anyone remember when you used to be able to go online and not be flooded with ads that garuntee to "make you bigger" or Online Gambling, dating services, Or opening Outlook and getting one or 2 emails from friends, not 56 a day with one being real? My memory is starting to fade... Ohh i miss the days of just going online and reading star wars Fan sites.

midiwall

Which program Chris?

The link you posted points to a website that spends a lot of time talking about building a hosts file. I see that there's an app associated with doing that.

Past that, there's a section in the left panel that talks about removing adware/spyware, following a link there brings you to a page which lists the programs that we've been talking about here... Spybot, Ad-aware, etc. Those have been shown to do a good job, but miss a lot of things.


If you've found something that really _removes_ this crap better than the commonly mentioned apps, then that's something to get excited about. But I'm lost as to just where it is.

A direct link would be great... My eyesight may suck more than I think it does.

Dr. Zhivago

I've posted this before, but here goes:

To help prevent adware and spyware from getting on your system in the first place, do these things: (You must be running IE6 or higher)

1. Go to Internet Options/Privacy tab. Click Advanced. Click Overide automatic cookie handling. Click Accept First Party Cookies, Block Third Party Cookies and Always allow session cookies. Ok your way out of it. If you have trouble with certain sites, you will need to edit the cookies list and add them manually.

2. Go to Internet Options/Security tab. Click "Custom Level". The first 5 options pertaining to ActiveX should be Prompt, Disable, Disable, Enable, Enable. WAY down the list, look for "Userdata persistence". Set to Disable. Ok your way out.

These changes will make a big difference and you should only get cookies occasionally showing up in your spyware searches unless you routinely install ad-supported software.

Hope this helps.

Peace!
G

Andyman

It's not really a program, but just a bunch of registry entries that are sites to block cookies from. The hosts file is something completely different. That is like an address book for IP addresses. The computer checks this host file everytime you type an address.. (like www.yotatach.com for instance.. not the IP address) If the name is listed is tries to contact the IP address in the list. If you set it for your own computer it will never find anything and not load the page.

How does this get rid of spyware? well it doesn't.. but it's good prevention!

midiwall

Right, which was my point that Chris is arguing against.

My issue here is that what you guys are doing does NOT get rid of the crap on your box - it just prevents it from working.


No, actually it's not. Building a hosts file like this doesn't stop the crap from showing up on your PC and _TRYING_ to "phone home". It only stops the symptoms which are the popups.

Blocking cookies by name will stop a site from dropping a marker, but again, it won't stop the crap from being installed on your machine and the crap from trying to phone home. Also, you're onliy blocking specific cookies - all that someone has to do is to slightly change the name of a cookie and they're back in business, then you have to add a cookie to the list, then you end up in a vicious circle of hunter and hunted.


Galen's suggestion is prevention on a more general scale if you use IE. You can use the security features of the browser to help you fight.


If you're comfortable with this crap still on your PC, even though you can't see what it's doing, then okay. I much prefer to fix the problem at the root than mask it with an aspirin.

ravencr

So what's your recommendation then?

Chris

P.S. I get zero pop ups using my method, so I'm not sure how it get's any better than that!

midiwall

I posted my recommendation on a previous page, step-by-step. It involves a lot of back-and-forth with reboots, anti-spyware apps *AND* virus detectors.


Like I said above... If you're happy then fine, but please don't claim that what you found is something it isn't.

The apps are still on your machine sucking memory, disk, CPU and network resources while they're constantly trying to find their home servers. That's simply not healthy for your machine.

You CAN clean a machine without doing a re-install. It takes a lot of work. Sometimes the removal apps work, but they're only as good as the data they use to detect the crap. It's a LOT easier to create new crap than it is to find it, and the crap authors know this and use it to their advantage.


The best way to clean a machine is to stop if from getting dirty. Galen's idea is great and it traps most of the crap trying to get to your machine. To work further on it, don't install apps that you don't know _AREN'T_ adware.

If you want to play with random apps, then spend $50 on a 40gig drive, set it up as a stand-alone bootable drive, and install Win2k. Lock down your primary system and NEVER EVER install anything on it that you don't install on the secondary first.

ravencr

All I know is that these spyware detectors that work continuously to prevent the popups from happening slow the computer down tremendously, while the stuff my link says to do doesn't slow it down at all compared to the softwares that detect and clean them.

Chris

midiwall

Wow this is frustrating... I said that over on page one...

Yes, the apps that work outside of a browser that constantly look for popups will slow a machine down. A PROPERLY implemented feature like this will not because it will stop the popup from occuring at a point within the browser code.

You still have the code running on your system Chris. I promise that you do... I suspect that what you're seeing is a perception of your machine being faster because the popups aren't showing up. It's a lot like AOL and EarthLink's claim of "faster browsing for dial-up users". It's a perception, not a reality.

Get rid of it and things will "get faster". If the crap isn't there, then it CAN'T slow the browser down.


I promise that you'll get a popup in the future... I say that 'cause you've only calmed the symptoms of the ones that are known. Give 'em a bit of time, they'll be back as you do whatever it was that brought them to your machine the first time.

You're not doing anything "wrong" to cause them to show up on your machine in the first place, you just aren't as "careful" about what's happening on the machine.

It's all about how you browse, where you browse, and what you install in general. fwiw, I don't get any popups on any of my machines, and I rarely run the anti-ad software, when I do, I may get one hit in 4-6 months.

I'm pretty anal about not running stuff on my box that I don't know; Galen's even worse. His machine is the purest example I've EVER seen of someone really understanding how to clean a machine - and how to KEEP it clean.

Andyman

Clean is also stopping and disabling services you don't need and checking the task manager to make sure that spyware isn't running... There are so many little processes that are needed...