Love is a problem!

[walterick]

Heh heh

Everytime someone writes the word "love" in a post it turns it into a link! The same is true of the word "work." Look at Kellybean's post in the Viewfinder - she has the word "love" in the subject so you can't open the thread! Put you can click on the word "love" and it opens a link to a search engine. Huh?

Rick

[Mig]

Heh. Sorry Rickster, but it's not the site - it's your PC. This is a nicely visible sign that you've got some funky junk on your system. If you don't already run AdAware download it, update often, run often.

Danielle

[Trevor Ash]

Definetely a local problem rick. Spyware, Adware, something else you or a family member may have installed. AdAware will hopefully detect it otherwise browse around in your add/remove programs area and look for anything su****ious......

[Sebastian]

Time to download Sy Sweeper. AdAware will do the trick for some stuff, but for the most part you will need several different pieces of software to get rid of all of it. Get Spybot Search and Destroy as well.

[walterick]

I began to wonder if that was the case, when no one else was seeing what I was...

You're all correct. Luckily, this is not my computer. Sadly, this computer is only 1 week old...

Lara, John, whomever feel free to delete this thread as it is obviously irrelevant to this board.

Thanks all for the responses!

Rick

[Lara]

Maybe we should leave the post up, in case others encounter the same problem. Danielle and Sebastian are right, it is spyware/malware. The software Seb suggested is definitely the way to go.

BTW Rick, I did answer you in Hodgy's thread.

[SmartWombat]

I use both Ad-Aware and Spybot, I need to run both, beacuse each find problems the other misses.
I suppose if I use a third program I might find more - but I think two is enough.

[Lara]

Paul, have you downloaded the latest version of Ad-Aware SE? I use both as you do, but I noticed lately, Ad-Aware seems to be cleaning the spyware better than before. Just an observation.

I still run Spybot as well. ;)

[Mig]

Same here Lara - I normally run both, AdAware first then Spybot to pick up any left-overs (usually not much), but since SE Spybot gets nothing.

But I also run ZoneAlarm and use Mozilla so I don't get much garbage to begin with.

Danielle

[SmartWombat]

Yes, I keep up to date every two weeks or so.
I also run Sophos anti-virus just in case.

[walterick]

I felt bad about hijacking poor Hodgy's thread so I came here to post instead. Thanks for the all the responses!

Off to download Spybot...

Thanks all

Rick

[walterick]

Since we're on topic...

Every time I run Ad Aware SE on my own computer I get about 50-100 new critical objects found every week. Is that typical of everyone else's experiences? Seems like a lot.

Thanks,
Rick

[Lara]

Not typical for me Rick. I may have 10 or so at a time. Yours could be coming from a site you visit often. Did you notice the file names? Data Miner is a common object. For the most part that's the one I'm constantly cleaning. It's a tracking cookie and is harmless.
If there is a web site or sites you frequent, you could try running a scan after visiting each site to see where you are getting the most from. If you run Spybot, you should be able to immune your system to some of these hits you are getting.

[walterick]

Now I have some frame of reference. I had downloaded Morpheus (P2P software) and I think that's where I'm getting most of it from. I deleted the program today so I'll see how it goes. The only other sites I frequent besides this one are Ebay and Photo.net. I don't imagine either one of those has anything teribly malicious...

BTW, for your amusement, I am back on the "Infected" computer again that belongs to a friend and which started this whole thread. I realized after reading everyone's responses that the owner was using an older version of Ad Aware. So I downloaded and installed SE Personal for them and... 989 critical objects. Do you believe that? It's only been online 2 weeks!! I deep-scanned mine this morning and found 152 critical objects. Almost makes you want to give up on humanity...

I'll try that with Spybot - thanks.

Rick

[Lara]

You're welcome Rick.

Holy Cow! 989 critical objects? I'm surprised the computer wasn't down to a crawl. Spyware is getting more prevalent by the day. Danielle mentioned Mozilla. Firefox is a good browser that eliminates a lot of instances of spyware.
I am unable to use it for several reasons. One being the work I do for school. But it could work out well for you.

Another thing Rick, I would run regclean after cleaning out all the malware. Chances are, there will be a bunch of registry files loaded into the registry from this stuff. It will also indicate files no longer in use from previous programs etc. that you no longer need.
Read through the files and if you see anything you think is still relevent, just don't delete it. Chances are it's okay to delete, but better to leave it if you are in doubt.
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/fil...id,4666,00.asp

[Michael Fanelli]

Just a note... Changing browsers won't get rid of spyware or adware. It will reduce the number of viruses you get. I use Firefox exclusively and yet Spybot S&D and Ad-aware SE still find things when I run them every few days.

Use these spyware checkers, use a good virus checker, and hide behind Zone Alarm. That will reduce your chances of picking up something nasty.

[tijean]

Oh yuck! Morpheus is full of junk. So is Kazaa. I'm not about to go around plugging P2Ps but there are some out there much, much safer than those two. A P2P is a great way to let in all sorts of junk, but those two come ready made with piles adware/spyware.