D@mned Popups!!!

[God Emporer BillyBrew]

Have these been bugging you guys lately or am I the only one? I've been getting around 50 pop ups in a half an hour. That's even if my browser is not open. I use Zone Alarm, Ad-aware and MS antispyware. It's super annoying. Anyone have any suggestions to get rid of them?

 

[david_42]

CentOS 4.3, Firefox 1.5 and Adblock (actually, the last two work fairly well on the W2K laptop).

 

[Desert_Sky]

Yep, Firefox is your anti popup friend

I havent used Explorer in over a year now. I love it

 

[timdsmith72]

yeah....What they said. I use Firefox all the time and can't remember the last time I saw a popup.

 

[cowain]

Sounds like you have spyware. Try Spybot Search and Destroy.

 

[user 574]

Go get the google toolbar if you want to stay with IE. Convenient for searches and has a built in popup blocker. But I do think you also have spyware. Are they popping up w/o you going to a site even (sitting idle)?

I like the MS antispyware because it runs realtime intercepting some stuff. Is it up to date? Try a full scan and then also go get adaware and give that a try too.

 

[Blender]

You have some spyware program running when you start your computer. It is a bit more than just popups. Spybot works well.

 

[the_bird]

We had a bad infestation of spyware on our home computer that sounds like what you've got. Not even running a browser, stuff would pop up. Neither spybot nor Adaware got rid of it, it kept reinstalling when the computer was booted up. Unfortunately, I can't remember everything that we did to finally get rid of it, I know that I tried running the antispyware software in Safe Mode, but I can't remember if that worked or not. I know there were some specific files that SWMBO deleted manually ('cause she deleted a couple too many).

Cripes, I may have just re-installed Windows...

For regular popups, the Google toolbar works great (it's also nice having the Google search always at the ready). Much, much better than the Yahoo! toolbar. On the old laptop (which was also spyware-infected), I used Opera instead of IE and had no problems (used Firefox for a little while, I just happened to prefer Opera).

 

[Wolf]

Yup, it's spyware. If Spybot doesn't take care of them manually, go to your 'Add/Remove Programs' and scan through whats listed. See if you can find anything you didn't install and don't recognize, then Google it. If it's causing the problem Google should easily find pages that tell you it's Spyware and give directions for how to remove it.

If you're comfortable editing your registery go get 'Hijack This'. It helps remove the registry files that automatically reinstall the nasty buggers when you restart, even after you've deleted it once.

 

[Bernie Brewer]

I don't get any popups, but I've been getting an unusually high amount of spam lately.............

 

[Glibbidy]

Either use firefox or opera, and by golly get yourself the google toolbar, these kill pop ups, even the ones i get here when I have a Private message.

 

[freyguy]

Like the_bird said, they may come back after a reboot. If this happens, go the the control panel, then system, and there will be a check box for "System Restore". Uncheck that box so that they can't come back. They hide in there and wait for the reboot. They are some tricky sob's!

I do like spybot, and I use Avant Browser instead of IE. It cuts down on alot of popups. My uncle had a similar problem, and he was successful with the AOL virus scanning tool. I've never used it though.

 

[the_bird]

If you're comfortable editing your registery go get 'Hijack This'. It helps remove the registry files that automatically reinstall the nasty buggers when you restart, even after you've deleted it once.

That's the other program that I used that helped me identify the files we needed to get rid of. I think it will even tell you which of the processes or files are problematic. I'm pretty sure that was how we finally got the system cleaned out.

 

[God Emporer BillyBrew]

Some good advice, I just set up Spybot and it seems to have helped some, but I'm still getting them. I think I've got some self replicators here. I'm going to try the Hijack This! thing and will probably go ahead and give Firefox another shot. I had a hard time getting it to run last time, but I'll try again.

 

[SwAMi75]

If you're getting them when your browser is closed, I don't see how a different browser could help. It's an infection of some sort. Make sure your signatures in Spybot and Ad-Aware are up-to-date, and do a complete virus scan. I've never used Hijack This, but it's worth a shot.

 

[Genghis77]

Main problem I have is phishing. Most lands in my junk mail box, but I get lots. PayPal scams, winning the lottery and quick riches from people in Nigeria.

 

[the_bird]

Main problem I have is phishing. Most lands in my junk mail box, but I get lots. PayPal scams, winning the lottery and quick riches from people in Nigeria.

Can somebody explain to me how "phishing" got to be spelled a la Trey and the gang? I've never understood that...

I get probably sixty, seventy, maybe eighty junk emails a day in my work account. Since they installed a new filter, each one gets scanned uber-close, which is nice except that it takes like ten minutes to get all my mail in the morning. Feels like bad dial-up instead of T1.

 

[Beer Snob]

I use Incredimail for my email and it does a real good job at getting rid of spam. Not perfect, but does a real good job at it.

 

[Genghis77]

Phishing is a play on Fishing, as in fishing for information. The ph is like in phoney. Least that's the way I heard they came up with the term.

 

[TxBrew]

I had a virus and it was a nightmare. I bought McAfee finally and then ran Hijack This!, Adaware and Search and Destroy to finally get rid of the problem. Everyone of those programs picked up something new.