Suna, are you Russian?
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Suna, are you Russian?
NY Monger,
"but I'd suggest for the casual pc-user its too hard to remember all the techno-jive."
Casual runners have to watch traffic too or they get hurt, not just the pros. Remembering three folders can't be that hard: cookies, history and tempoary internetfiles (dos name tempor~1).
BTW, if you use the MYie shell on top of your M$ie, you have a tool that will remove all but the index.dat files when you close the browser. I've been using this shell for almost a year now and it's great! It kills pop-ups too.
Suna,
This site never got me infected with spyware or anything like that. But if you surf the web without caution, you are bound to pick up more than you bargained for.
Even ISP's that ought to be reliable try to put stuff on my machine that I don't want. Caution and knowing what to look for helps to make them fail in their attempts.
If you want to know more about the spyware you contracted, do a Google search and start reading. Spend an hour on that now, safe hours of unwanted program removal time later!
Go thru a proxy server if you are worried.
Need a list of proxy let me know.
If you want to cover your tracks in XP, just copy the 3 lines into notepad and save it as cleanup.bat. If your XP is setup with multiusers, replace username with yours, otherwise there is a directory for all users. Put your bat file anywhere and double click on it to execute whenever you want to clean.
del /f /s "C:\Documents and Settings\username\Cookies\*"
del /f /s "C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\History\*"
del /f /s "C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\*"
Firstly, I don't advice depending your life on it as I said below. Think of it as an arm race. It all depends on how much is the strength of your opponent. Either it can be an overkill, or what if your wife ship the whole computer to an expert and prepare filing for divorce? As simple as auto complete, the addresses are not included in these areas. So you have to disable auto complete in IE also, otherwise when your wife type www.w, the wsgforum address appear instantly. This you can see, but maybe there are others you can't.
If you admin the computer, it's a good idea to setup an account for each user in Windows, as simple as setting up family email accounts in your ISP. There's good reason that only one person can see and edit the system files, and that only one person can download and install programs. So you can password your account and leave it up to the others to use password or not. There's good reason to use password, to avoid accidents created by any user on other user's files. With these setup, others really can't see what you are doing so you don't need to cleanup.
If your father is the admin (hehe), it's a good idea to cleanup if you have a multiuser setup. You just setup your own IE options, cleanup your own tracks and nobody will notice. But it's painful. You are going back in time to use IE 1 instead of 6.
If Windows is used as default, where no user names are setup, cleanup isn't a good idea. How do you explain that the PC is squeaky clean every time after you use it? Even your kids will think that you are watching porn. Do you expect your wife to remember and retype every password she registered?
I only cleanup at work when I expect someone coming for my PC like IT support. Just to avoid embarrassment, or that the guy is nosy. If they really want to target you, there's little you can do about it. They don't even need to come close to your PC. However, there are ethics and privacy issues that will keep their mouth shut.
Surfing at work is a big no no even if you can surf wherever you want. I use my home PC as the proxy. Anything between my work PC and home PC is encrypted, a private tunnel. Network monitoring software cannot know where I've been to.
I can't resisting humoring (good or bad) guys like Suna. He talk the talk, like an Internet junky, or even a Guru. But he is clueless. You cannot 'pickup' spyware, only install it. Either you download some software and install it. Or IE ask you permission to install something when you are surfing. Anything from weather monitoring to internet tool bars. Just a warning, the spy removal programs are even more dangerous than the spywares.
Suna is correct: if you enter www.worldsexguide.org you receive the automatic proposal of installing DashBar/Precison time, that is, as far as I know, something like a spyware (or data miner, according to Ad-Aware).
Just say NO and nothing happens.
If you go directly to www.wsgforum.com, you do not receive the above proposal.
In any case, we all are at least 18 yo, and we must know when to say yes or no.... :-)
"Just a warning, the spy removal programs are even more dangerous than the spywares."
This is a misleading blanket statement that is patently untrue -- there are any number of spyware removal tools which are very much on the up-and-up. It's true that the stuff you'll find spamming your mailbox or advertised in pop-ups is bad news, but Lavasoft's Ad-Aware, for example, is not only above reproach but a must-have.
"Just a warning, SOME spy removal programs are even more dangerous than the spywares."
If you are picky, use the corrected version. It can't be wrong, can it? Joe, I advice you to do a search for 'best' or 'all' in WSG and you will have a busy time arguing.
TNH, I've got no utterly issue or problem with people giving their opinions, which is most of what WSG is all about, but that's a very different thing than an absolute pronouncement giving technical advice. I've spent far too many hours cleaning up messes on various people's computers created by such statements. It's like a prescription -- the dosage and frequency simply does make a difference. Some things are either correct or incorrect and the specifics matter, regardless of your storied indifference toward usage of language and grammar.
All,
"if you enter www.worldsexguide.org you receive the automatic proposal of installing DashBar/Precison "
I use Myie as a shell over M$IE and when I enter www.worldsexguide.org in the address bar and click enter I hear a 'pop', meaning that a pop-up was killed.
MYie is G-R-E-A-T.
It's free!
Try it!
It can also be set to clean History, Cookies and Temporary internetfiles. Leaves only the index.dat files to be removed by hand.
Be safe out there....
Joe, as I understand English, ALL is blanket, SOME is rather safe to use, and THE that I used originally is rather neutral to me.
Spyware is rather safe, otherwise it will be call a virus, at least a non-infectious virus. You lost your privacy but MOST of it are compiled into statistics for marketing purposes.
The most dangerous part is removal. If you don't remove it, nothing will happen. If you use a bad removal software and try it on a nasty spyware, the OS can be corrupted. My advice is don't download the first removal program that you can find and think that everyone is the same.
Many IE tool bars has pop-up blockers. The yahoo companion has one, the alvista translation has one. I use both so I don't need to install more software.
Sorry, TNH, but the specific way you used "the" does in fact imply all as opposed to being a neutral statement, as would otherwise be the case. Syntactically, by saying "the spy removal programs" you're using it as a statement of a class type, including all members of that class. Cool if you meant it to be neutral, but that's not the meaning as written.
I disagree with you that spyware programs are basically harmless. Outside of the privacy issues, (which is putting aside a lot in a thread about Internet Security) various of these programs have also been conclusively found to be directly responsible for Windows system and Internet browser crashes, and are able to secretly download and cause Windows to execute any arbitrary program into the unsuspecting user's computer. Those are significantly negative things, not even considering that we're talking about about something that basically uses your internet channel without your knowledge or permission -- basically stealing your bandwidth and affecting system responsiveness and performance. To me, that's not harmless stuff. I agree with you that problems can result from using bad removal tools, which is why I mentioned Ad-Aware, which does not have those issues.
I also very agree with you that pop-up blockers such as those from Yahoo or AltaVista are must-haves to help avoid accidently installing such stuff. Great care must also be taken when installing shareware programs, as far too many still have Spyware attached to them.
"... THE spyware programs.." implies ALL spyware programs, is eye opening to me. I would think that THE implies specific spyware programs. And since I didn't even tell you what's those programs, I merely imply 'there exists some'.
I think in talking about spyware we all imply that we are mostly talking about adware, at least I'm. The fact that the program from lavasoft is called ad-aware supports this. Most of these softwares are safe in the sense that I explained before. Yes, some of the crude programs can cause crashes, which causes few damages. But if you try to remove those things with equally crude software, you may need to reinstall OS rather than reboot.
I have also mentioned the difference between adware and virus and imply something else. To gain control to your computer using adware is like using anal sex just to make a woman's pussy wet, and then make love via her pussy.
Even simple pop-up blockers will also dismiss invitation for downloading adwares.
Think of the syntax issue like this: if you say "the Democrats" or "the stars" it's a reference to them in general, not to some specific ones. The only way it's specific is if you've previously defined and are referring to a clear data subset.
And the point about spyware programs being able to download updated versions of themselves, including executable files, to have the ability to redirect your browser to wherever it wishes, and to willy-nilly run programs on your computer as desired, regardless of whether or not you give explicit permission for this to happen, is that you are NOT operating in a safe environment. Most folks would frankly be better off weedwhacking the things out and needing to reinstall or repair their OS than to have their precious personal data at the whims of such an insecure situation.
The fact that most spyware doesn't bother to take control of your computer in a malicious manner certainly doesn't mean that it's not possible, and security is all about limiting the negative possibilities.
TallnHandsome,
As I've said before, I have methods of cleaning up after me, but I gave your cleanup.bat a try. It is small and easy to take along.
But: No work for me on W98. I did remove the local settings bit.
Where do I go wrong?
Joe zop,
Instead of arguing over 'the' you could tell us 'which' spyware program is the best to remove that stuff. Not that you get any if you're careful, but still...
Q: Which spyware remove program is the best?
A: It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is.
I use Ad-Aware and also Spybot - Search & Destroy. They are unequivocally (some of / all of / the very) best ones. :)