Mistake...embarassed

[wowsers30]

I got a little carried away and went to a ton of porn sites, the ones that continuously link to others. Anyways, these sites usually put spyware on your computer. I think this happened to my computer, except its in the form of a program that continuously tells me my computer is performing bad and that i have tons of spyware. I've scanned my computer a dozen times and it finds nothing. Has this happened to anyone else? How do I get rid of it? I would really like to avoid going to the campus IT office to get it fixed bc it might be clear I was looking at (gay) porn.

 

[ElectricSuperstar]

Do you have Windows XP? If you try safety.live.com. I've found it to be a fairly effective scanner, and the best thing to come out of M$ in years. The online scan is free.

 

[mike_n_herrin]

what spyware sweepers have you tried? there is a new version of spybot 1.4 or at least i think it's new i was prompted to update my version to that one yesterday.

anyway let us know what you've used and we'll see if we can recommend something else.

 

[Homoerectus]

Electric, thanks for recommending the spyware cleaner.

 

[mike_n_herrin]

sorry for not posting the link for spybot. you can get it here: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html

here are instructions on how to use it: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial43.html

another program is called ad-aware: http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE...045910.html?part=dl-ad-aware&subj=dl&tag=top5

here are instructions on how to use it: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial48.html

What OS r u using? Win XP?

Its hard 2 believe that u could have a problem like that in XP, - it is super-secure. Anyway, its ur own fault. u shouldn't b surfing porn sites liek that.

If ur goin 2 b so careless u need 2 upgrade 2 Windows Vista Ultimate and subscribe 2 Live OneCare. Vista Ultimate is more secure then other Vistas and the Ultimate upgrade is just $259.95 and Live OneCare is just $49.95/yr.

Also, don't pay attention 2 those people who tell u 2 use Firefox. IE 7 is the greatest browser ever made, and way more secure then FF.

/\ i hope this was meant tongue in cheek. if it was, then just ignore everything i am about to say and sorry for the thread hijack.

XP is not secure at all. that has become abundantly clear over the last 5 years. if it was secure he wouldn't have the problem.

given the length of time Vista has been out for the public use, you also can't possibly know if one version would end up being more secure than any other version of vista or if any of them are really "secure" or not.

IE 7 is also rather new and i suspect that it is NOT more secure than FF, but only time will tell on that also.

the dude said he had been a bit...impulsive and fully is aware that it's his mistake that got him in his predicament. i mean geezs this is a porn site also after all and we're all here.

 

[Matt1809]

MS sez ultimate is more secure....thats y u can run ultimate in a virtual machine but not vista basic or premium. MS dont want people tryin 2 run vista on mac and linux since those systems r so dangerous. they can let in viruses n shit that could hurt windows n damage ur computer.

but ultimate is more secure so they can let u run ultimate on mac and linux.

but xp is major secure, dude. i never been infected and i never use protection. way safer then macs.

What the hell are you talking about? Ultimate is not more secure. Security is not a feature they can add or remove, unless your talking about bitlocker, which is completely different and has nothing to do with OS security.

 

[mike_n_herrin]

ok joke taken. i don't know why, but i thought in light of your other thread this might have been a joke aimed at you. i think if i were little fish i'd have made a new thread, since this one was an honest request for help.

 

[miaplacidus]

I use Ad-Aware, however the free version doesn't include real-time protection. I haven't tried Spybot yet. I should...

Spyware is a constant problem under Windows. That's why I'm trying to switch to Linux.

 

[tom46268]

Any time you suspect that you have obtained a virus or spyware it's best to restart you computer in SAFE MODE and run any anti-virus and anti-spy programs you have. In SAFE MODE, you get a more thorough sweep of your system. Once the scans are completed and you have followed instructions for deletion and/or quarrantines you can restart your computer and hopefull be back to normal. Good luck!

 

[wowsers30]

lol, i just went to a porn site and clicked a link, ie6 closed and my mouse had that loading icon, i was like OH SHIT SOMETHING BAD IS LOADING. i paused for a second, went to hit the power button but it was too late i already had a pop up just like you disscribed. it installed a whole program. anyway i rebooted, it was still htere with the pop ups so i used restore, and it restored it to before i got the spyware.

That's exactly what I did...actually before getting a chance to read your post. I love that i set it to set checkpoints like every other day so I didn't loose that many programs. (Only AIM Triton ) Thank you.