Help! Viruses!

[Westley]

Our Computer is overrun with horrible flesh-eating viruses! They send pop-ups every second! I've already had to x out 2 in the course of this message. Pest Patrol, as uber powerful as it is, can't get them all out, and they keep coming back! Heeeelp meeeeeee! I don't know what to do! Spy ware and trojan's and trojan droppers (he he trojan droppers) and key bloggers and locusts! What a world, what a world! What to do, what to do....

[apoetic]

Formatting would probably be your best bet. Otherwise you might want to try two programs: Lavasoft Adaware and Spybot: Search and Destroy. Used in conjunction these should remove the greater part of your problems. Both are free to download.

[esskreemr]

Our Computer is overrun with horrible flesh-eating viruses! They send pop-ups every second! I've already had to x out 2 in the course of this message. Pest Patrol, as uber powerful as it is, can't get them all out, and they keep coming back! Heeeelp meeeeeee! I don't know what to do! Spy ware and trojan's and trojan droppers (he he trojan droppers) and key bloggers and locusts! What a world, what a world! What to do, what to do....

You'll need multiple products to get rid of them.

Download Stinger (McAfee) first, do a scan. Remove infected files. Stinger is free and scans for 50 or so of the most "popular" viruses.

HiJackThis will give you information on what is present on your system.

I use Spybot search and destroy and LavaSoft Adaware to remove the scumware.

Scan your computer at http://housecall.antivirus.com for viruses.

Download a tool that will let you remove Browser Helper Objects (BHO). Toolbar cop is pretty easy to use but I haven't gotten it to work in XP.
Spybot will let you remove BHOs in advanced mode.

All in all, it's a tough complex fix. Hope this gives you someplace to start.

[davtsung]

Sounds like you have SPYWARE up the wazoo. For a good pop-up blocker, www.panicware.com is pretty good. Try also updating your Windows security updates at WWW.windowsupdate.com and download the sp2 update which includes a firewall. Norton antivirus is still golden, but Webroot spysweeper has kept my computer running smoothly.

[mrbiggs]

Relevant Link

ORRRRRR, get a very good anti-virus program. They cost alot, but it's better than losing your computer.

And everyone must download an anti-adware program. It's shocking how much spyware can accumulate in a short time. Ad-Aware is a good one.

[DJ Apostrophe]

My list of anti-crapware without having to pay anthing (tm) programs:

Spybot Search & Destroy: http://www.spybot.info
Lavasoft Ad-Aware: http://www.lavasoft.com/software/adaware/
Webroot Spysweeper: http://www.webroot.com/downloads/ (under 'try it' on the right)
Network Associates Stinger: http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/
AVG Virus Scanner: http://www.grisoft.com
Firefox Web Browser: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Stinger is to get off any of the 'popular' viruses that have already found a nice cozy home on your system, and AVG is to prevent any more from moving in.

I like norton better than AVG, but AVG's price is much better.

There is no reason not to use firefox... the interface is 1000x better than IEs, it has features IE does not (tabbed browsing, download manager, the list goes on), and the crapware has a much tougher time getting in through firefox than IE (less security holes), and it loads pages faster as well.

good luck...

-w

[Spike327]

Yeah, definitely use Firefox once you get that spyware off.

[MikeHarm]

Are you sure pest patrol isn't sending the popups to you? Its been a ploy recently that they'll slip the spyware into fake 'spyware cleaners'. Instead of helping you they instead kill the competing advertisers pop ups while routing their own to you instead. I haven't heard of pest patrol, so I'm wondering if its a reputable program.

[jeff]

As pointed out - stop using Internet Explorer, and switch to a decent, safe browser: Firefox. That alone will solve a lot of your problems with security. Also, the first time some website does a pop-up, Firefox will nicely ask you if you want to suppress such nonsense in the future. Get the virus checkers, spyware blockers and personal firewalls too.

Better yet: if you can: stop running Windows. Switch to a Linux distribution oriented for the desktop (they really do exist.). Switch to Apple (yes, this requires getting a new computer, but Christmas is coming). In both cases you'll leave behind the horrible security aspects of Windows. Friends don't let friends use Windows.

[Larrison]

I've never heard of "Pest Patrol" either, and I would be suspicious that it might be the source of your infection.

I use Macafee Virus Scanner, Spybot Search & Destroy, and BlackICE firewall, and I do a LOT of web work, and have not had other than very very minor issues (e.g. spybot indicated that a cookie I had accepted was sending out user data.). I also use Internet Explorer and Windows XP.

Sounds like you have spyware on your machine -- the record I've seen was a neighbor who had 300+ spybots on his machine. It had slowed his machine (a 2.8 GHZ speedster) down to a crawl and made his use of the web almost impossible. Spybot cleaned that up with a couple of passes, but I also cleaned out several "helpful" programs he had loaded as freebies from the web which tended to reinfect his machine -- things like Kazzaa. You can see these if you look in the Windows Control Panel, and look at the programs which have been installed on your machine. Just check before you delete programs that you don't need them.

Get and run Spybot Search and Destroy-- its free.

Make sure you are running the latest patches to your operating system, and make sure also if you are using mIRC or a chat client that you have them set to not download a program and run it without prompting you for permission.

[noodle]

to reiterate:
1) stop using internet explorer and use firefox instead
2) use spybot. (don't use adaware)

[mrbiggs]

If you download Ad-Aware, or even those of you who already have it, make sure you have Ad Aware SE, not Ad Aware 6. I know someone who scanned his computer with Version 6, found 50 programs, and deleted them. It was still going slowly, so he upgraded, and found....500 more. So make sure it's all upgraded.

[mollusk]

Switch to a Linux distribution oriented for the desktop (they really do exist.)

Linux is not just for desktops. Linux is now quite happy on laptops and can work (with a little knowledge) with wireless. In fact I'm running posting this using Firefox on a laptop running SUSE 9.1 and connected to my home wireless network.

[Westley]

Pest Patrol isn't a bad program. We've had it a long time and never gave us any trouble. Our system was horrible and this helped a lot. The problem is, i think it just doesn't have the firepower we need.

[noodle]

Linux is not just for desktops. Linux is now quite happy on laptops and can work (with a little knowledge) with wireless. In fact I'm running posting this using Firefox on a laptop running SUSE 9.1 and connected to my home wireless network.

indeed. i have a fedora desktop, a slackware/2k desktop at work, and a knoppix cd in case of emergencies.

probably going to dual boot this laptop with something sooner or later.

linux can do anything windows can. the problem is that they just require a lot of knowledge to properly set up, so its not exactly something for a novice computer user to play with.

[esskreemr]

My list of anti-crapware without having to pay anthing (tm) programs:

Spybot Search & Destroy: http://www.spybot.info
Lavasoft Ad-Aware: http://www.lavasoft.com/software/adaware/
Webroot Spysweeper: http://www.webroot.com/downloads/ (under 'try it' on the right)
Network Associates Stinger: http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/
AVG Virus Scanner: http://www.grisoft.com
Firefox Web Browser: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Stinger is to get off any of the 'popular' viruses that have already found a nice cozy home on your system, and AVG is to prevent any more from moving in.

I like norton better than AVG, but AVG's price is much better.

There is no reason not to use firefox... the interface is 1000x better than IEs, it has features IE does not (tabbed browsing, download manager, the list goes on), and the crapware has a much tougher time getting in through firefox than IE (less security holes), and it loads pages faster as well.

good luck...

-w

AVG has a free version. It's pretty cool and so far has worked well. It doesn't hurt to periodically scan with an alternate Virus scanner. One of the first things that modern viruses do is go after the av.

Firefox is excellent. The ONLY problem I have is with Websites that check for browsers and require IE for no apparent reason. Other than that, no problems with compatibility whatsoever. It's popup blocking feature is a godsend for those of us who don't like a trillion programs running in the background.

[noodle]

Firefox is excellent. The ONLY problem I have is with Websites that check for browsers and require IE for no apparent reason. Other than that, no problems with compatibility whatsoever. It's popup blocking feature is a godsend for those of us who don't like a trillion programs running in the background.

you can, eh, switch the browser authentication with firefox.
make it look to the website like you're using internet explorer to browse it.

[mifencer]

I sympathize with you Westley. If you do a search, I asked basically had the same question. The answer I got from here help me a lot. I used Spybot to get rid of my spyware. It worked so well, that I put it on my work computers. Eventually, my work (a Fortune 50 company) used it in the local office as well as the National office. (I hope the 'man' gave some donation to the cause)

Firefox is another great way of getting rid of the spyware problems. (I personally don't use it but I know A LOT of people who do, and they think everyone should use Firefox).

I would recommend a good virus protection software as well. Don't be cheap, $40 over a year = pennies a day for protection.

Good luck.

[latenight]

Get Suse Linnux.

After my third and last crash I switched. No problems life is good.

[jeff]

noodle, mollusk, latenight: I completely agree. I didn't mean "desktop as opposed to laptop", I meant "desktop as opposed to server". No need putting Red Hat Enterprise Linux or SuSE Linux Enterprise Server for a personal-use machine (unless you want to run it as a server too, but then you're definitely not in the "regular user" category.)

This post is created in Mozilla running on Sun Microsystems' "Java Desktop System", which is a package based on SuSE Linux with a number of useful add-ons. I have a forest of desktops and laptops running Linux (Red Hat, SuSE, Debian and Cobalt) or Solaris (and even dual-boot Solaris and Linux), and very, very rarely, Windows. I am not troubled by viruses, ad-ware, or Blue Screens Of Death!