Guest Deeswift Posted August 4, 2004 Share Posted August 4, 2004 .:. REMOVING SPYWARE & ADWARE .:. OK you have probably all heard the words "spyware" or "adware" used in the past, but what actually is it and what impact does it have on you and your pc? Have you ever been bombarded with pop-up advertisements? Has the homepage of your browser changed to some strange site and you can't change it back? Are strange files appearing in directories on your pc? Are your downloads slower than they used to be? If you answer "yes" to any of these questions then you may well have some form of spyware/adware on your pc. Spyware is basically designed to track your surfing habits. This information can then be sent out to specific companies for various purposes. Adware on the other hand simply displays adverts. These can be in the form of banners in a program or pop-ups of one sort or another. An example of a program that installs spyware and adware onto your pc is Kazaa. This comes in the form of software from companies called Cydoor and GAIN (Claria). Here's some information on these direct from Kazaa's website "Cydoor provides the advertising technology you see in the bottom right hand corner of your Kazaa Media Desktop. The service downloads a collection of banner ads from a web server while you are online. As you use Kazaa Media Desktop, the service rotates ads and intermittently polls the server for new ad collections. Statistics are sent to the webserver recording which ads were displayed and how often." "The GAIN Network delivers online advertisements that are selected based in part on how you surf the Web. GAIN Network ads include the GAIN name and/or logo, so you’ll know they’re delivered by the GAIN Network – not by any website." Kazaa is far from being the only company to provide so called "freeware" with unwanted elements embedded in it. Always read the EULA when you are installing software! The problem with the majority of these unwanted programs, is that when you uninstall the host program (e.g. Kazaa) the spyware remains on your pc. There are several programs you can use to scan your pc and remove the unwanted files but three of them stand out from the rest. Ad-aware Ad-aware is free. It scans your pc for suspect files and can then remove them safely. It backs up any changes it makes so if there is any problem later on, you can restore your pc. You can get information on this program and download it at http://www.lavasoftusa.com Spybot Search & Destroy Again, this program is free. It works in a similar manner to Adaware but has a range of other features built into it such as a secure file shredder. Take a look at the website at http://www.safer-networking.org Hijack This! Hijack This! is a tool that analyses various settings on your pc. It's a bit more complex and not so automated as the two programs above, but it can be used to correct problems that Adaware and Spybot sometimes can't handle. The homepage is at http://www.tomcoyote.org/hjt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steelio Posted August 5, 2004 Share Posted August 5, 2004 Once a while ago i ran spybot search and destroy and it deleted all my executable files, so im a bit wary about using it. How can i use it without risking breaking my computer again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Deeswift Posted August 5, 2004 Share Posted August 5, 2004 It doesn't delete any executables unless they contain spyware (which is what it's supposed to do). If it contains spyware, chances are that Spybot and Ad-aware will kill it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted August 5, 2004 Share Posted August 5, 2004 I think the only way it would delete all of them is if they had become infected with something. Did it literally delete ALL of them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steelio Posted August 5, 2004 Share Posted August 5, 2004 I think the only way it would delete all of them is if they had become infected with something. Did it literally delete ALL of them?<{POST_SNAPBACK}> yeah i couldnt get on the control panel or anything, all the icons were there but when i clicked on them it said .exe not found or sumthing. Iv ran spybot again yesterday for the first time since then and it hasnt caused any problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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