Hidden Spyware Programs on your Computer

[46Driver]

wingnutt,
I'm not good with computers either. Are you running SpyBot? Mine came up showing 294 programs - you can click on some of the suspected files. I did - they all showed to be some type of parasite, so I crossed my fingers and deleted them all. It worked superbly. Good Luck.

 

[paulsalem]

Spybot & Ad aware

I work tech support for Ohio University (21,000 students) we use Spybot Search and Destroy and Ad aware. Get the updates everytime you run them (weekly). Spybot also has an imunization feature. The best way to avoid spyware is to NOT use any music sharing programs(kazaa, imes, morphious etc) (kazaa LITE excluded). If you have any of these you're best bet is to reinstall your opperating system. Also, if you do not know what you are installing, don't install it. Make sure to read the licensing agreements before installing any software.

 

[Timebuilder]

Before you run these programs, first delete the cookies you don't want and the temp files.

That cuts the number of "suspected" stuff way down.

 

[wingnutt]

...havent done the spybot yet, this was the adaware program. but then again, im still dialup, so i dont know how much its gonna help

how about a quick cookie/temp files deleting course from the gurus?

 

[huncowboy]

You don't need/want to delete all your cookies, most of them are there for your convenience like logging in for you to this forum without having to type in the login and password every single time you want to post.

If you use spybot it will delete the cookies that track you and the rest of the stuff like searchbars and automatic popup generators... those really suck. Most of these tracking cookies are not harmful except they are giving statistical info about us without our knowledge or content which is why I hate it and think it is illegal. But if you don't want cookies at all you can turn them OFF by:

right click on your IE icon on the desktop > select the "privacy" tab and move the bar to the top... it will say "all cookies blocked" or similar. Then after a day when you get sick of typing in passwords for flightinfo.com you can turn them back on the same way. Just remember where the slider was

Most temp files can be deleted by:

start > programs > accessories > system tools > disk cleanup

in win98 and XP that is. Mac I dunno

I don’t have an antivirus program installed right now. Why? Because I have received a total of 1 virus in the last 4 years and I am downloading like 24/7 all kind of stuff. If you follow simple rules you can get by without an installed antivirus program. I own Norton but I don’t have it installed, however the CD is next to the computer just in case. Once you install Norton it takes over your computer. If you keep it at the default setting and turn/leave everything ON it will drastically slow down your computer but it will still not find the virus that just got out that day. If I see something suspicious on my computer then I pull Norton, install it, update it and run a scan then uninstall it or at least disable it because it is a pain.

Some simple rules that I follow are:

- don’t click yes to any window that pops up and wants to install something that you have no idea what it is especially while IE is running and you are browsing. Of course if you want to watch a CNN video and RealPlayer will want to install itself then that is ok although I hate realplayer or quicktime but you need to have them unfortunately.

- if you got a pop up mess in front of you and you can’t close the windows then do not follow the instructions. If it says “click yes to close” don’t trust that. It may or may not going to close it. If you can’t get out of a site hit CTRL+ALT+DEL and go to “applications” and select every item that shows internet explorer and end it by selecting “END”.

- NEVER EVER open an e-mail attachment from an unknown sender, and question all the attachments (especially ones ending in “exe”) even from known senders in case you don’t expect anything from them. The one virus (klez) I got, came through an e-mail attachment because I thought the guy who I knew was sending me something. Yes. He is a pilot

- Always update your windows. That is a no-brainer. But at least go and update it when you see CNN announcing the latest security breach.

- Finally use these programs like spybot every time after you experienced a bunch of pop ups especially with porn or gambling or similar in it. It is only a few clicks to stay clean and you can let the rig scan it while you're doing something else.

- for e-mail spam BTW... I don't get spam. Dangaboooom... why? Because I don't give out my e-mail to everyone. If I want to ask a question at a gaming forum or download a free software I will set up a yahoo e-mail for it and use that to register. I have a certain yahoo e-mail just for this. That thing has about 500 e-mails whenever I go to clean it up so I can keep it alive. All spam. If I buy something and give out my real e-mail I will always find the checkbox that determines if I need any special offers and select “no”. Of course if you have a .com email especially with your own website than filtering is not that easy.

Hope this helps but if you wan to know more it is all on the net. There are forums like this with professionals helping the average user like myself. I am no IT guy.

Now having said all that I bet tomorrow I will catch a nasty virus LOL.

 

[Wankel7]

speedy.scr and puta!.bat have owned my computers. It is really easy to get rid of. Just really annoying!

If anybody is having trouble with that I can help.

Wankel

 

[CA1900]

Re: apple? ummm... not for me

Depends on what you want to use it for. I like to play games on the PC.

Of course, that's why I made a point of saying that in my reply, as I'm well aware that as a gaming machine, it's not ideal. There are some terrific games out there for it (Halo, Soldier of Fortune 2, etc.), but not nearly in the quantity or time frame that they are for the PC. (That's also why I keep my Playstation 2 around.

For me, gaming on the computer is way down in my priority list, so it didn't factor into my computer-buying decision at all. I'm definitely a different kind of customer from you; nothing wrong with that.

I am sure you can build your own Macintosh too but the community behind it is much smaller and you don't get the amount of info that you can for regular PCs. "Is my nVidia card going to work with the Epox board with the whatever chip set?"... kind of thing I am talking about.

They're certainly shooting for a different kind of customer than you, and that answers your question about how Apple is still in business. They sell to people like me who don't want to worry whether some ATI or nVidia card is going to conflict with the FireWire/USB cards I just put in, or whether the OS is going to accept any of it. They include things like Firewire 800, USB 2, 100 or Gigabit ethernet sound output/input, wireless networking etc., in the machine when you buy it. You buy it, you plug it in, and it works well.

Same goes for the laptops, which aren't really home-buildable. I'm typing this on my girlfriend's new iBook, and it's an absolutely amazing little notebook computer. Is it for you? Probably not. But it'd be an ideal machine for a lot of people, and at $1100, it's not the bank-breaker people seem to think Apple machines all are. Take a look if you're bored:

http://www.apple.com/ibook/

(Don't let the "slow" clock speed fool you. The PowerPC processors do quite a bit more in a clock cycle; its speed is in the neighborhood of a 1.8GHz Intel chip. Clock speed's a very bad indicator of processor power.)

I buy the argument that you are less vulnerable because your group of users is smaller and thus less viruses are written for your OS. But than it is also true to say that you have less security people working on freeware software to keep your Mac safe for the very same reason.

There's more to it than that. The core of the modern Apple OS is an open-source unix architecture (FreeBSD), and there are a myriad of people working constantly on security for this system, and not just at Apple. That's one of the huge advantages of an open-source operating system. Programmers around the world can contribute to it if they discover a security flaw (or other improvement that can be made). There's no spyware. For an application to install ANYTHING, it has to be with express permission of the user. The internet ports that would let the outside world do damage are SHUT by default. (I believe Windows is finally doing this as well. Happy to see it.) And the root user is disabled by default, and must expressly be activated. I haven't needed to yet for any reason.

In short, it is very secure, right out of the box. The smaller user base does make it less likely I'll get an attack, as you point out, but that doesn't diminish the inherent security of the system itself which will protect me from such an attack. You just don't see things like the Blaster worm affecting unix systems, because they wouldn't be able to replicate the way they did under Windows. It simply wouldn't have had the access to do it under the Mac OS or any modern unix system.

Of course you need to do your windows update on every Sunday after church but that goes for the hardware too in your computer not only for the OS. Is this not the case for Mac?

Not for the hardware, no. The only firmware update I ever got was for the built-in DVD-RW drive, allowing my 2X burner to handle 4X media without barfing on it. (It was a bug in the Pioneer drive's firmware, specifically.) Because it was a drive Apple shipped with the machine, the OS's built-in software update function alerted me to the update. I didn't have to go find it on my own from Pioneer. I'd probably have never even known about its existence if it hasn't alerted me to it.

There are software updates that will come out periodically, but not nearly as frequently as the XP updates come out. Generally they'll be things like a security update, an update to one of the modules like the built-in e-mail that gives it new functionality, or something like that.


Please don't get me wrong; I'm very glad to see Windows getting more stable, even with a bit of tinkering. I'm just getting to the point where I don't want to tweak it anymore; I just want to fire the thing up, do my thing on the internet or whatever I need to do, and relax. I used to repair and sell computers for a living; I guess you could say I burned out early on the tinkering.


My point I guess was for the folks who don't want to chase the latest viruses, worms, spyware, etc., there is a very viable option out there. It isn't for everyone (it sounds like it's probably not for you), but it's worth a look for a lot of people who dismiss Apple without ever really researching it.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[huncowboy]

Hey,

Your info on the subject is welcome!!! We posted at the same time so I was typing before I saw you pointing out the games issue with Macs.

I haven't built rigs for living but I wouldn't mind since it is fun. Too bad I can't build a machine for me or for someone else every other day. So naturally I am only an amateur and I have never owned, furthermore never even touched a Mac ever. Your post makes me even more believe that Mac indeed does something right but I agree I won't be their target customer because I am the dude who likes to take it apart and tweak it. I like to tweak my OS too and have the false feeling that I am in charge my computer. Certainly cleaning spyware and taking steps to prevent attacks or to clean a virus is not the fun I am talking about.

I keep meeting people (mostly older) who say that "I have paid for it, so it should work right out of the box!” like my microwave. They are right. So I guess Apple is more for them judging what you wrote about it.

BTW I am for competition, windows should start to do better and not just make profits with a screwed OS that was forced onto everyone... talking about Win95 back then. I think they are realizing it slowly because XP is really a big step up but they still have a long way to go.

Having said all that if you buy a Dell (the only rig I ever bought ready made, one desktop in 2000 and a laptop just recently) you will be fine right out of the box. I have never had compatibility issues under my old Dell desktop. That is until I have started replacing parts in it . And that under win98. My current desktop runs smooth too but I did put in extra time to get all the right parts that are compatible. It is running XP Pro. My laptop has XP Pro also and it is smooth as well. Although I like your iBook G4 you can get a Dell Inspiron 5100<http://www1.us.dell.com/content/pro...eatured_inspn_quickship?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs>
for $1199 and for the user you are describing (internet, e-mail, word processing, spreadsheet and some applications) that is plenty computer and comparable performance. Plus dell is a quality product, not saying that apple isn't. I got an Inspiron 8500 to which I can connect my cell phone in three different ways, I can burn DVDs, I use a wireless home network to connect to the net from while on dump duty in the bathroom, with which I can play Flight Simulator 2004 with good frame rates, with which I can watch DVDs on my TV etc. Just yesterday I hooked up a digital camera to it and it worked like a champ. I can say it was working out of the box without problems… well it was more than $1200 but I bet a 5100 works just as good as my 8500 with less feaures but right out of the box. I got alerted to update drivers on it from Dell (but I turned OFF the software because I don't like if anything runs in the background) and even windows update alerts oyu lately with drivers but I must admit I had a bad experience with their "Klingston" mouse driver offered through winupdate.

I guess we are two different type of customers. Regardless, like I have said it before, I am happy to see that Apple is still afloat and provides a quality product with a different OS because we need more competition in theat department.