"Red13" said:
Just wanted to know if any of you have a quick fix on
how to stop these grey area boxes that pop up from people
and opportunists that advertise their websites. This is
very annoying and ive tried looking for a solution to
know avail.. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/communicate/stopspam.asp
Enable the built-in firewall, ICF, in Windows XP. If you have AOL, which
ignores ICF, please contact them for support. Do not disable Messenger
Service, as some people seem to suggest, because this doesn't fix the
serious problem, which is that unwanted packets are flooding your computer.
Imagine that this is an iceberg, and the messenger spam you are seeing is
one tenth of the unwanted data traffic. Steering your liner within a few
feet of the visible part will mean that you're still liable to be hit by the
subsurface ice.
Since there are recent exploits for the very same ports that allowed the
messenger spam to proceed, it's clear that disabling the Messenger Service
only hides the problem. Leave it enabled, enable your firewall, and then
you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that if your firewall ever fails,
you'll receive instant notification by the piles of spam that return.
Disable the Messenger Service, and you'll have no such warning.
Alun.
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