FABIO wrote:

laudablepuss wrote:

Chemdem wrote:

FABIO wrote:

Chemdem wrote:

FABIO wrote:

Ever since I've installed and run spybot search & destroy and CWshredder, my browser hijack has gone away, but now I'm getting popups all over the place, even on sites that don't have them (like this one!). Three updates after the problem started, and no program says I have any major adware programs on my computer. A few were detected and deleted, but the popups remain.

Is Spybots price of being free forcing you to view more popup ads?

I had the same problem recently. Spybot is bugged with false positives and does only a half-assed job. It does not seem to be able to locate the the spyware trojans that are causing your popups. One of the apps changes your internet settings in the registry which just opens the floodgates to a variety of other trojan apps. Most of the spyware removers are crap. I would suggest using Ad-aware as it works and has a reputation to uphold.

Yeah that seems to be the case. I just checked my security settings and activeX + active scripting were both set back to enable.

I've run Ad-aware every update for the past 3 updates, still popups.

Not that this will solve your problem but this is what I did: I was one week into a fresh OS install, so tracking down rogue apps was pretty easy. Cut your internet connection by whichever means is easiest. Go into the program manager and end all user processes. Run Ad-aware. Go into the Program Files folder and look for apps that you have not installed. The easy tell seemed to be their butt ugly icons that you should not recognize. Chances are that there are two or more programs. One to open the window and one to serve the ad. Delete/remove all apps that are suspicious. Go to your network settings and set everyting for the whole internet to ultra paranoid. Connect your computer back to the internet and startup your browser. Test for popups. If you don't get any drop your internet settings to normal and try again. After that wash rinse and repeat if necessary.

I did find one of those apps in my windows folder but not on any other drives or partitions so you may look there as well. Anyway happy hunting.

Also: make sure to look in Program Files\Common Files for more spyware horseshit. You might post the names of suspicious folders here so I can tell you whether they're legit or not.

More fun: open regedit, look under hkey_local_machine, then software, then kill the shit that looks retarded. ESPECIALLY keys that are just random numbers and letters. Might want to set a restore point in XP first, though. Under that same software key, check out Microsoft, then Windows, then Current Version, then Run and see what's set to automatically start when windows starts. Kill whatever looks evil.

Did anyone already mention hijackthis? If so, they were wise. If not, check it out.

Hijackthis seems to be for people who know what they're doing, as I've nuked many an innocent program with it. I miss notepad :(