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OJ
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
4382 Posts

Initially Posted - 12/08/2004 : 12:38:33

I'm using Lavasoft's "Ad-Aware" for detecting and removing spyware. I can scan and delete anywhere from 70 to 80 objects in one session. But, I get the impression I could delete objects and have new (or the same) ones reappear in the same day! Seems unproductive to repeat the same process over and over.
Now I'm even getting a pop-up that asks if I want upgrade to the latest edition of some software I've never heard of - much less installed.
What are people here doing to keep "data miners" from attaching themselves to their computers?

Edited by - on

jm
Captain

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Canada
290 Posts

Response Posted - 12/08/2004 : 12:48:14

I use Spybot Search and Destroy..

[url="http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10289035.html"]spybot[/url]

Edited by - on

Oscar
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
2030 Posts

Response Posted - 12/08/2004 : 12:54:27

Pop ups? What are those?

Mac G4/OS 10.3.6/Safari/Fastermac.net

Oscar
C42 # 76 "Lady Kay" (Ex. C250 WB #618)
Georgetown MD/Fort Lauderdale FL

"Hindsight is 20/20, if I knew then what I know now, I would now be living on a small wooden sailboat, making a few bucks here and there playing a guitar and singing songs in bars."

Edited by - Oscar on 12/08/2004 12:55:47

familysailor
1st Mate

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USA
38 Posts

Response Posted - 12/08/2004 : 14:48:18

I second the Spybot recommendation. It has an inoculate feature that should prevent know spyware from reinfecting you machine.

Edited by - on

Frank Hopper
Past Commodore

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Pitcairn Island
6776 Posts

Response Posted - 12/08/2004 : 14:51:04

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Oscar
 Pop ups? What are those?

Mac G4/OS 10.3.6/Safari/Fastermac.net

Oscar<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Now Now Oscar, We Mac users are not supposed to gloat.

Edited by - on

Oscar
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
2030 Posts

Response Posted - 12/08/2004 : 15:09:42

Just pointing out the obvious.....

Of course, if everyone came to their senses, the boogers would start attacking US...

Oscar
C42 # 76 "Lady Kay" (Ex. C250 WB #618)
Georgetown MD/Fort Lauderdale FL

"Hindsight is 20/20, if I knew then what I know now, I would now be living on a small wooden sailboat, making a few bucks here and there playing a guitar and singing songs in bars."

Edited by - on

Champipple
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
6855 Posts

Response Posted - 12/08/2004 : 16:24:30

I'm using a Spy-bot Ad-aware cocktail for the home PC. At work I leave that up to the Information Protection Department...and being a bank those guys don't mess around

Edited by - on

oldsalt
Admiral

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USA
578 Posts

Response Posted - 12/08/2004 : 16:28:31

I use Spy Bot Search and Destroy as well and I'm satisfied with the results, but I'm told that none of the anti ad ware programs are foolproof.

Edited by - on

matsche
Captain

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USA
280 Posts

Response Posted - 12/08/2004 : 16:35:32

Norton Internet Security 2005 will scan your system for spyware and viruses. It also gives you a firewall, popup and spam blocker. I've had it for about 3-4 months and it works well.

Edited by - on

Lightnup
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
1016 Posts

Response Posted - 12/08/2004 : 17:08:44

I've been very pleased with Lavasoft's Ad-Aware. I just run it once a week - usually the last thing I do at night, then I just delete all the bad files in the morning. Incidentally, the first time I used it, I got rid of 366 malware and tracking files.

Steve

Edited by - Lightnup on 12/08/2004 17:10:47

Jeff McK
Captain

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USA
389 Posts

Response Posted - 12/08/2004 : 20:42:01

I'm gloating along with Oscar. MACs are the way to go if you are worried about spyware, popups & all the "features" that come with PCs & Microsloth OS anything.

Edited by - on

Oscar
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
2030 Posts

Response Posted - 12/08/2004 : 20:54:54

That's right.....sometimes I think that Mac's are to computers what sailboats are to water craft.....oh no....duck DUCKDUCK..

Oscar
C42 # 76 "Lady Kay" (Ex. C250 WB #618)
Georgetown MD/Fort Lauderdale FL

"Hindsight is 20/20, if I knew then what I know now, I would now be living on a small wooden sailboat, making a few bucks here and there playing a guitar and singing songs in bars."

Edited by - Oscar on 12/08/2004 20:55:56

Gloss
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
1916 Posts

Response Posted - 12/08/2004 : 21:11:08

I bought a copy of Webroot Spy Sweeper at Comp USA as it was recommended by their geek. I'm not impressed at all with it and wouldn't recommend it

I'll look for that Spybot, and Ad Aware program. Thanks for that recommendation,

While watching CNBC the other day they were interviewing some engineer with one of the software companies and was asked why Macs didn't have problems. He said it was because of the low percentage of Mac users verses PC's so it's not worth it to these scumbags to attack the Macs. He said that they aren't protected any better than PC's. I'm not slamming Macs, I understand that they are great machines, that's just what he said

Edited by - on

Oscar
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
2030 Posts

Response Posted - 12/08/2004 : 21:39:40

And he's correct. Sometimes it pays to be a contrarian.....(That betamax player I bought is still collecting dust.....just kidding.)

Oscar
C42 # 76 "Lady Kay" (Ex. C250 WB #618)
Georgetown MD/Fort Lauderdale FL

"Hindsight is 20/20, if I knew then what I know now, I would now be living on a small wooden sailboat, making a few bucks here and there playing a guitar and singing songs in bars."

Edited by - on

ClamBeach
Master Marine Consultant

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3072 Posts

Response Posted - 12/08/2004 : 21:44:25

Don't want spyware? Change your IE browser security settings to 'prompt' before running Active X controls. Unless you're really expecting an active X app to fire off... (like a pdf or media player) just say no. Don't like pop-ups and other 'diversions' either? Set scripting for 'prompt' too. You'll find that about 98% of web sites run just fine without them.

At work we have active X and scripting enabled.... so we run spybot and spyware blaster in combination with pretty good results. Like any protection software, keeping the signatures updated is important. Ewido, Ad-Aware, Pest Patrol... are pretty good too..

If you see malware re-appearing over and over, you may need to do some serious cleaning with tools like Hijackthis, Kill2Me, CWShredder, in conjunction with examination of the processes in task manager... yada. (this is deep stuff and requires some expert knowledge). There are quite a few 'help me' forums out there... here's a page that lists some good ones.

http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/forums.html

On top of the malware threat, you should be running a firewall (hardware or software)...

ZoneLabs has a pretty good free one available (software). You'll be amazed at the incoming volume of probes and attacks. A little Linksys or D-Link internet firewall/switch works well at stopping attacks too. If you have XP, the built-in firewall is pretty good provided you turn it on... and on top of all that, you need to stay fully patched. If you're running open source browsers you'd better keep up on them too... they aren't invulnerable either. (Major Java vulnerability announced yesterday)

It's the 'wild west' out there.

Edited by - on

John V.
Admiral

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USA
559 Posts

Response Posted - 12/08/2004 : 21:53:32

I have used lava soft and spy sweeper and several other protection software products. none of them worked or protected my computer. Once certain worms made their way into my system they would call on all their buddies as soon as I logged on and I could not keep .up with them as they piled on. I was wise enough to save files to several CD roms before the real damage set in, but after a while the drive gave more trouble until it crashed completely. Lost everything. I'm glad I did the back up.

My new hard drive and software is protected by the latest version of Norton Anti virus. I do the updates every day. I was very sorry to discover that the people creating these invasions of our privacy are persistant and will do anything to get into your computer for your data and personal information.

Edited by - on

Lightnup
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
1016 Posts

Response Posted - 12/08/2004 : 22:07:44

Oh yeah, switching to Mozilla Firefox from Internet Explorer for my browser also helped a bunch!

Steve

Edited by - on

Dave Bristle
Master Marine Consultant

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Djibouti
10005 Posts

Response Posted - 12/08/2004 : 22:10:46

Some of us, particularly I, pretty much have to use what the commercial world uses so we (I) can participate, and so we (I) can stick with one paradigm that we're used to. I won't bother listing the things I use for business that aren't available for the Mac, although I'll concede that Macs are very nice for what is available. I've been told that Mac OS is much easier to hack, with many more vulnerabilities (some in the hardware), but not worth the hackers' energy. That's great for those who are satisfied with them. It's one of the reasons I got my 84-year-old dad, who had never used a computer at the time (and didn't want one), an iOpener internet/email appliance, which is closer to what we'll all be using one of these days than either Macs or PCs. (It lit up his life!)

All of that said, I'd love to dump Bill Gates and his predatory company--maybe when I retire. Innovation--HAH! Oh-oh... Who got me started?

Edited by - on

tdannar
1st Mate

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USA
25 Posts

Response Posted - 12/09/2004 : 01:31:25

FYI

I, too, have been using "Ad-Aware". Also had "Spy Bot" installed and it seems that "Ad-Aware" found a lot more stuff. I did have a problem the other day and could not get "on line". I have Cox High Speed Cable modem and all of the lights were lighting up and appeared to be OK but browser could not find an "internet connection" "Page not found". After reinstalling everything and much frustration, finally gave up and called tech support. Come to find out, they tell me that sometimes "Ad-Aware" and some of the other spy-ware eleminators are a little aggressive and damage "Winsock" and "Winsock 2" in the Windows Registry.

I currently use 2000 Professional operating system and there is a help page on the windows site that explains in detail how to replace these two files in the Registry.

Once they were replaced, everything fine.

I will continue to use the spy-ware programs as I do think that they help keep the system running better with all of the garbage eleminated.

Terry

Edited by - on

Champipple
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
6855 Posts

Response Posted - 12/09/2004 : 07:40:25

Afterthought: Ad-aware is shareware, you should be able to find a home user copy for free on the web. Also, google makes a great pop-up blocker that runs in conjunction with IE. I am looking at my browser right now and over 2500 pop-ups have been blocked in the last six months. If you want pop-ups to appear, you can set it per web page

Edited by - on

tdannar
1st Mate

Members Avatar

USA
25 Posts

Response Posted - 12/09/2004 : 14:55:54

Link to download "Ad-Aware"

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/

Terry

Edited by - on

Ben
Master Marine Consultant

Members Avatar

USA
1234 Posts

Response Posted - 12/10/2004 : 08:47:03

My computer at home is barely usable due to spyware. Will a router fix the problem, should I also get a software program like Ad-Aware or Spybot? Do I need them both?

Thanks ya'll.

Ben

Edited by - on

ClamBeach
Master Marine Consultant

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3072 Posts

Response Posted - 12/10/2004 : 10:32:00

A router/firewall won't 'fix' or protect you from malware... malware is usually planted by being contained in 'legitimate' internet traffic. The firewall protects against other types of more 'direct' attacks from the internet... hackers, mail zombie agents, DOS attack agents, back-door keysniffers etc..

If you have an internet traffic monitor, you'll find that an non-firewalled computer is being probed for vulnerabilities pretty much continuously. A study posted last week reported that unprotected machines stuck out on the internet were compromised in about 4 minutes.

If your machine is already badly corrupted... I'd download and run multiple malware programs... probably Ad-aware, Spybot and Ewido. Even this may not get them all. Some of the malware programs are very nasty and persistent... they launch multiple daemons that monitor their own health and re-spawn themselves under different names when a cleaning agent is run, hide themselves in altered system files etc. I've spent hours dis-infecting some badly compromised machines.

In short, if you have a PC , you have 3 different classes of 'threat' to worry about.

Direct Attack (countered with firewall),
Malware (comes in via internet traffic, countered with anti-malware software)
Viruses (usually, but not always email-borne, countered with anti-virus software)

As noted in another post, some of the anti-virus packages are now blending malware and anti-virus protection...

Edited by - on

Ben
Master Marine Consultant

Members Avatar

USA
1234 Posts

Response Posted - 12/10/2004 : 14:01:18

Thanks for the clarification, Clam. Looks like my wife and I have some work to do.

Edited by - on

roberoo
Navigator

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USA
182 Posts

Response Posted - 12/10/2004 : 21:02:10

Just a quick note.....Upgrade your Windows XP Pro to SP2. Some cautions....Clean your PC of viruses (Scan all files), run a couple of different Adaware programs. Then do the update ( I would download the Network version instead of the internet version It's free) that will sit on your hard drive so no need to worry if you get bounced off of the internet while upgrading. SP2 offers some more security options that seem to work ok for me. I also use Mcafee corporate v.8.0 and Adware se pro. I have a real clean machine.

BIG CAVEAT IF USING NORTON GO TO THEIR WEBSITE FOR THE FIXES NEEDED BEFORE UPDATING.

Edited by - on

ClamBeach
Master Marine Consultant

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3072 Posts

Response Posted - 12/11/2004 : 10:42:06

bob wrote... "Upgrade your Windows XP Pro to SP2"

Good advice indeed... If you're running windows, regular visits to the Windows update site are a must... or activate the 'auto update' service. Caveat... If you're running 'important' stuff on your PC (like a business) you will want to review and consider the updates 'manually' before installing.

If you have a PC, it's critical to back up important 'stuff' on a regular basis (backup interval determined by how much you're willing to lose)... USB memory sticks are cheap, quick and effective (start at $30), ditto plug-in USB hard drives (ca $100)... ditto CD burners (ca $30), DVD burners (ca $100).

Edited by - on

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