Warning: The following rant contains a line that may offend Puritans.
Spyware sucks. At least, that's what I think it was. I was hit yesterday and I have no idea where from. It completely killed my laptop for an entire day. After I noticed things running a little slow, I ran Adware. It told me to reboot to completely clean it up and that was it. Whatever it did, it hit the explorer.exe file Windows needs to run. It refused to boot AT ALL.
So, after re-installing Windows entirely (and then Word too which it seems to have got a hold of and w.bloggar won’t run at all now), I downloaded Ad-Aware which is supposed to be better. Well, it found the one piece that was left but it can’t get rid of it no matter what I do. I tried Spybot too.
Now, about every 20 minutes, I get a pop-up ad on my desktop for refinancing mortgages. I would threaten to shave the creator’s testicles off with a cheese grater if I ever met him face to face, but that would be a threat and I could get in trouble. Oh wait, I just did. Oops. I’m open to suggestions if anyone has any.
Comments (7)
Have you tried Microsoft Antispyware?
Posted by Neil T. | April 4, 2005 4:01 PM
Posted on April 4, 2005 16:01
My dad tells me he has had good success with MS AntiSpyware. I have installed it in Virtual PC 7 on my G5, and it seems like a pretty solid app.
Matt - you could always get an iBook or PowerBook :P
Posted by Ken Edwards | April 4, 2005 4:11 PM
Posted on April 4, 2005 16:11
MS Anti.. only works on Windows 2000 and up. I'm running Win 98 since this laptop is relatively weak. Thanks for the suggestion though.
Ken, when you're willing to buy one for me, I'll use it. =;)
Posted by Matt Paprocki | April 4, 2005 4:21 PM
Posted on April 4, 2005 16:21
I've not worried about spyware or viruses on my Windows computer for two years. That's how long ago I took it off the internet. Today my Mac goes online - even when I am going online to get files for my PC.
Posted by David | April 4, 2005 6:59 PM
Posted on April 4, 2005 18:59
I have to agree with David, take your PC offline. From what I hear from my PC using friends, all the dangers are just too great.
I've never had a virus or adware or whatever with my Mac.
Good luck.
Posted by Sean | April 5, 2005 9:12 PM
Posted on April 5, 2005 21:12
Sean, thats great and all, but not everyone has BOTH a Mac and a PC. Many people, like Matt, just have a PC. We will all pray for those such people.
Posted by Ken Edwards | April 6, 2005 6:43 PM
Posted on April 6, 2005 18:43
Update: The bastard is still here. Everytime I try another suggestion from a Google search, it replicates itself in two different places before it can be deleted. Ad-Aware isn't picking it up anymore either. Even worse, it's always running in the background and it prevents you from using ctrl, alt, dlt to stop it (or anything else for that matter). That seems to be part of the problem. Now it's out of pure will that I'm going to kill this thing.
Oh, and some of have PC's because we're normal.
*ducks the flames coming in*
Posted by Matt Paprocki | April 6, 2005 11:44 PM
Posted on April 6, 2005 23:44