adware/spyware suggestion needed
 

My desktop seems to be infected with a serious case of adware/spyware. The homepage is taken over by a porn site, windows pop up constantly and the task menu shows many many programs running that don't belong. Even when I terminate those the popup activity continues and system resources virtually disappear. Can anyone recommend a freeware/shareware software to deal with this? I am gun shy because it seems like a lot of the ads popping up are for this kind of software so I am wondering that I might be installing something that makes the problem worse!

I am running Win98 but plan to install Win2K once this problem is resolved. Would an install take care of it or only transfer the problem to the new OS? I have 2 drives in the machine, one old one of 6gig with the OS on it and a new one of 40gig that has only the format with command.com on it (and possibly now an infection?).

As you can likely tell I am not very well informed on OS/viruses/adware/spyware and would appreciate some input on what to do and what products might be useful.

thanks

Your best and only option IMHO: reinstall windows.

I've seen loads of badly infected machines, and unless you are capable of manually editing the registry and loads of other places this stuff can hide you'll never get rid of it with a spyware scanner, as soon as it's removed it simply returns again.

thanks for the quick reply
 

Scott,

thanks for the quick response and blunt opinion. If I do a resinstall of Windows do you think it is safe to preserve on floppy some word and xls files from my hard drive or would that risk reinfection? Would it be possible to move the 40gig drive to master, install the OS there, and then make the 6gig the slave and take files off it over to the 40gig (or would that risk infecting the 40gig new OS install?).

thanks,

Word and Excel files will be just fine as long as your Macro settings are set to "safe" (the default setting).

In the past what I did was simply put the bootable CD in the drive and do a clean reinstall without deleting anything prior to the installation of the OS.

Spyware digs itself into the windows directory, the ini files, boot files like config.sys and autoexec and in the registry, replacing all of them is what happens when you do a reinstall.

Any Office document should be safe to move off the computer (either to another hard drive or floppy disk). You may also want to make sure you have any important e-mails, contacts, bookmarks, etc. saved elsewhere, too. If you only have those two hard drives, you should be able to access the data on your 6gb hard drive (connected as a slave) after you reformat your 40gb hard drive and install Windows 2000. No adware/spyware will be able to survive a formatting, so your 40gb drive will be safe.

As for adware/spyware programs, look into Ad-Aware and SpyBot to help remove any nasty programs currently on your Windows 98 machine.

I would also look into using a web browser other than Internet Explorer. Check out Mozilla for some fine alternatives (Firefox, in particular).

Try Spybot and Ad-aware. Both programs are free and don't contain spyware. You can get them at www.download.com

Just like an anti-virus program, these program require regular updates to stay current. The updates are free as well. I recommend updating and running the scans once a week.

AdAware and SpyBot are good advice...but I believe you are infected with a varient of CWS (Cool Web Site). This is a particularly nasty infection that does not respond to AdAware or SpyBot. Get CW Shredder here. Run it first, AdAware second, and SpyBot last. Reboot. You should now be clean. No need to reinstall Windows.

You do have virus protection...yes? If you keep your virus protection updated (set it to automatically run at, say, 3:00 AM each morning) and run either AdAware or SpyBot weekly, you should be good to go.

Good luck...feel free to PM me if you need additional help. In case you haven't guessed, I'm speaking from painful experience on this one! :(

As an addendum to the important note Flying_budweiser (and others) made. Once you load Spybot, Ad-Aware, and CWShredder ensure you have the most recent variants installed. Initially downloading the programs may not ensure the most recent updates are installed. After you download the updates, close the programs first then reopen them, before you run the full scan.

I also have had success with Spysweeper, which used to be free for thirty days.

Finally, my McAfee virus subscription has located spyware that the free programs missed. Ensure your virus definitions are up-to-date, and run a full scan after the other spyware preventatives.

Keep in mind that if you have a "good" set of spyware (like the more recent CW's) then running a removal application will probably only make things worse, as soon as they notice one part of their set has been removed they replicate into more. The "Cool web" spyware package is a REAL PITA :(

I have had good luck with Ad-Aware and I agree technically with ScottC but it will get the porn off your desktop and let you operate somewhat normally. A reload is always best and I dont recommend upgrading win98 to win2k. I always do a fresh install and I would also recommend XP over win2k. Although both are a huge improvement I think over Win98 as once 98 gets running slow you might as well hang it up and just reload as nothing really ever gets totally cleaned up on Win98.

How do you get infected? Do you have to open an executable file or will visiting the wrong website get you?

There are loads of ways spyware can get onto your machine nowadays, it could be part of another application, infected software, pushed through Javascript, pushed through Activex etc...

Often people think that those that got infected were visiting porn sites, but this is certainly NOT the case, the main reason spyware gets onto a machine is through an unpatched browser. It's extremely important to keep your browser up to date!

Nasty enough that Merijn Bellekom has reportedly had to drop the project.

I believe someone (or some entity) will take up the cause. However, I also fully agree with the article that things like CWShredder only treat the symptoms, not the disease. Catching the losers who do this would be the real victory.

I had exactly the same problem. I down loaded Ad-AwareSE first. Then I down loaded SpywareBlaster. They worked miracles for me. Both are free. Ad-Aware scans and gets rid of adware and spyware already on your computer. SpywareBlaster prevents it from coming back. (Most of it) I run SpywareBlaster every time I crank up the computer. Before I go on line. It only takes seconds, and continues while you are online. Spybot is OK but very limited. Hope this helps. While you are downloading be sure to turn off any popup blocker you may already have. when finished you can turn back on.