Bad Site....and now Poor Performance

  • Thread starter Thread starter Eric
  • Start date Start date
E

Eric

I was surfing the web when I came across a fly-by-night
site that really did a number on my comp. A pop-up
screamed an advertisement for anti-spyware software and I
believe put some kind of spyware file on my computer.
The pop-up managed to open my CD-ROM drive, while telling
me "if your CD-ROM drive just opened, you have security
vulnerabilities!!!!" I closed the whole thing
immediately, but now my desktop functions poorly.
Programs don't freeze up, but I can't return to the
desktop or bring up a start menu. This happens within
fifteen minutes of restarting my computer. I am 90%
positive it had something to do with that pop-up.

Here's what I've tried so far:
1) A disk defrag to facilitate better perforance.
2) Deleting all cookies and all temporary internet files
3) Running an anti-virus program on my computer, which
detected no virus.
4) Tried to locate a good freeware anti-spyware program
to no avail (according to user reviews, they all suck)

So what do I do? I could wipe the hard drive and start
over, but that's a pain in the you know what. Anybody
have any ideas I can try first?

FYI--I'm running Windows XP Home with IE 6.0.2.

Thanks,
Eric
 
Eric;
It is known as Scumware. Visit these sites. Download, install, run, update
and
run again; one or all. They are all good, FREE utilities.
The first site gives some recommendations.
http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads.php?cat=all#s-p
1) AdAware
http://www.lavasoft.de/support/download/
2) Spybot S & D
http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?lang=en&page=download
3) SpywareBlaster
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html
4) HijackThis (some other stuff that may be of interest also)
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/index.html
 
"Tried to locate a good freeware anti-spyware program to no avail (according
to user reviews, they all suck)."

I don't rely on user reviews. How about these three applications, which
professional reviewers have highly praised:
Ad-aware, by Lavasoft http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
Pest Patrol, by PestPatrol Inc. http://www.pestpatrol.com/
Spybot-Search and Destroy, by Patrick Kolla http://www.safer-networking.org/

Your choice is an anti-spyware program or a reformat. That's an easy choice.

Tom Swift
 
Eric said:
I was surfing the web when I came across a fly-by-night
site that really did a number on my comp. A pop-up
screamed an advertisement for anti-spyware software and I
believe put some kind of spyware file on my computer.
The pop-up managed to open my CD-ROM drive, while telling
me "if your CD-ROM drive just opened, you have security
vulnerabilities!!!!" I closed the whole thing
immediately, but now my desktop functions poorly.
Programs don't freeze up, but I can't return to the
desktop or bring up a start menu. This happens within
fifteen minutes of restarting my computer. I am 90%
positive it had something to do with that pop-up.

Here's what I've tried so far:
1) A disk defrag to facilitate better perforance.
2) Deleting all cookies and all temporary internet files
3) Running an anti-virus program on my computer, which
detected no virus.
4) Tried to locate a good freeware anti-spyware program
Click to expand...
============================================================================
=
Same thing happened to me after opening a link in a newsgroup,(I knew
better...but). My start page was hijacked and all CD/DVD drive trays would
open. I ran ad-aware and spybot s&d. The problem was cleared up. Both of
these programs are very good at removing spyware/hijackers from your system.
Also a program called spyware blaster prevents these malicious programs from
loading onto your system in the first place. Google for all three and run
them on a regular basis.
 
-----Original Message-----
"Tried to locate a good freeware anti-spyware program to no avail (according
to user reviews, they all suck)."

I don't rely on user reviews. How about these three applications, which
professional reviewers have highly praised:
Ad-aware, by Lavasoft http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
Pest Patrol, by PestPatrol Inc. http://www.pestpatrol.com/
Spybot-Search and Destroy, by Patrick Kolla http://www.safer-networking.org/

Your choice is an anti-spyware program or a reformat. That's an easy choice.

Tom Swift




.
I've used Ad-Aware, Spybot, and Spybot-Search and Destroy
Click to expand...
since last Sept with great results. Here's another site
with some interesting security utilities.

http://www.grc.com/default.htm

Bill
 
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