Farkin' Spyware from Hell

[Morgan Ellis]

I've tried everything to get rid of a basket load of spyware on my lap top.

Spy Doctor.

Ad Aware.

Norton Professional.

Zone Alarm Security Suite.

Nada. Zip. It's still there, and it's making me nuts. It's harmless, since I'm running Mozilla and have uninstalled Explorer, but it's still slowing down my computer, and driving me crazy.

I'm loathe to do a full re-install, since there's some DVD creation and movie editing software on there that I don't have the install disks for, so I'm utterly out of ideas.

Anyone have any suggestions, other than bashing it in with a hammer - which is looking sort of viable at the moment.

Morgan

 

[Esco!]

I'd like to meet the fricking little shits that designs these things

Send em to the hospital with a cd-rom full of spyware shoved up his ass

 

[papasmerf]

Give spybot a shot

 

[jwmorrice]

Yahoo anti-spyware: comes with their toolbar for IE. Hey, why not try it.

jwm

 

[joebear]

how do you know it's spyware ?

do you scan and it finds the spyware.

You then remove it and you get reinfected ?

try a system restore.

I had a system slowdown on my laptop as well. I went nuts thinking it was spyware or the cpu fan was intermittently failing. I scanned -> nothing, did hardware diagnotics -> nothing, then thought it was a buggy p2p software that I was running. NOPE!

I had installed some windows update patches THAT screwed up my system.

After some searchng I found this.

The Processor Performance State Is Not Restored to the Maximum State If the CPU Runs at 100 Percent.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=330512

I tried a system restore point, nothing. I had to do clean install of XP and a select a few of the updates. runs fine now.

 

[papasmerf]

Yahoo anti-spyware: comes with their toolbar for IE. Hey, why not try it.

jwm

I installed it but tend to be suspect of it. You must remember many of Yahoo advertisers add the spyware to your system. Yahoo eliminating the files mould likely violate their contract with advertisers.

 

[joebear]

if it is spyware to clean your system, you may have to turn off the system restore to clean the infection in the system restore volumes.

For antivirus infections you have to turn off the system restore to make sure the infection does not come back.

spyware removal guide.
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/data/tshoot.htm

 

[Esco!]

In the U.S there is presently anti-spyware and anti-adware legislation on the table. I'tll be a few years before it's passed, though

 

[MojoRisin']

Im in the same boat right now Morgan...pain in the friggin butt! Just when you think its gone...there it is again.

 

[jwmorrice]

I've tried everything to get rid of a basket load of spyware on my lap top.

Spy Doctor.

Ad Aware.

Norton Professional.

Zone Alarm Security Suite.

Nada. Zip. It's still there, and it's making me nuts. It's harmless, since I'm running Mozilla and have uninstalled Explorer, but it's still slowing down my computer, and driving me crazy.

I'm loathe to do a full re-install, since there's some DVD creation and movie editing software on there that I don't have the install disks for, so I'm utterly out of ideas.

Anyone have any suggestions, other than bashing it in with a hammer - which is looking sort of viable at the moment.

Morgan

I'm curious as to what you picked up and where. Guess I'm just nosey when it comes to other folks' surfing habits.

jwm

 

[rembrandt100]

Do a google search for Spybot search and destroy.......it is free but they do ask for a donation. First time I ran it, it found 250 spyware programs and got rid of them. I still run it once a week or so and still get 4-5 each time.

As for where they come from it may have not that much to do with surfing habits. Yahoo collects info on thier members and thier surfing habits and so does the sites that offer icons (IE smileyfaces). The first one I ever came across was Comet Cursor they had hundreds of icons that you could change you cursor into and were all spy crap.

Dave

 

[jwmorrice]

I know a fellow who'd get drunk and then surf the net for porn. Ended up downloading all sorts of crap onto his machine because he really didn't know what he was doing - or was past caring. I hope that's not Morgan's problem!

jwm

 

[massman]

I've posted this a while ago, but use "hijack this". It found and got rid of stuff that spybot missed. Do a google search. You will also need to find out what to do with the results of the scan, since it will turn up some legit files as well. There are tons of computer genius message boards that can help you out.

 

[Morgan Ellis]

how do you know it's spyware ?

do you scan and it finds the spyware.

You then remove it and you get reinfected ?

It shows up on my scans, using all the various programs, but even Norton is unable to remove it. The suggested protocol is to re-name or self delete them, but I can't do either, since they're self protecting.

Some of the programs are dialers, some are home page hijacks, etc.

I don't have a phone line connection, since I'm on hi-speed, but when travelling I do sometimes use one, so the diallers in particular worry me.

As for where they come from... hey I'm not immune from surfing the not-so occasional porn site....

I'll try a system re-store. Barring that, I might end up back on here whining about whether anyone can send me the missing DVD and movie editing software I'm going to lose if I do a re-install of XP.

Morgan

 

[auto doctor]

Dear Morgan

Weroot spysweeper for 40 bucks works. It also removes browser hijack software and start up watcher and cookie watcher and other useful scanners. I recommend it. But not free. You can get a trial version. Well spent money. Webroot also provides updates to new spyware on the web so they can be removed as well.

 

[Girth]

Morgan, you said it is running slow. Is it slow to start=up? or does it lag after you are running? The reason I ask, is that on my kids computer, the start menu was filled up with all sorts of crap that would boot everytime they turned the thing on and it would take at least five minutes to load all of the programs.

Try start-run-msconfig and go into the start menu. Unclick everything in the start up menu and do a reboot. That should help in addition to the recommendations of Spybot and Adaware.

Good luck.

 

[jwmorrice]

Originally posted by Morgan Ellis ...I'll try a system re-store. Barring that, I might end up back on here whining about whether anyone can send me the missing DVD and movie editing software I'm going to lose if I do a re-install of XP.

Morgan

Why don't you ask first about the DVD and movie editing software? That way you'd know the possible price of any drastic actions you take.

jwm

 

[Esco!]

Dear Morgan

Weroot spysweeper for 40 bucks works. It also removes browser hijack software and start up watcher and cookie watcher and other useful scanners. I recommend it. But not free. You can get a trial version. Well spent money. Webroot also provides updates to new spyware on the web so they can be removed as well.

Auto D.,
I tried the trial version of webroot and although it detected spyware it did not remove because I ran the program for a 2nd time and all spyware was still there.

 

[auto doctor]

Escohort.


After the spyware sweep is done. You have to go to the remove tab and tell the program to remove the spyware selected. The reason is because not all spyware detected may not want to be removed (rare put XP has spyware intergated into the system). Once the removal is done then go to quarantied .

There are three steps, Sweep, quarantied, remove steps. (excuse the spelling and grammar..)

 

[Morgan Ellis]

I'll dig up the list of DVD/movie editing/creation software.

Right now, bashing the thing in with a hammer is beginning to appeal to me.

Morgan