spyware problems

[TMA_1]

okay guys need some help here.

For a few days now I have been getting popups. Then there would be a little shield on the righthand bottom corner of my screen saying that I could be open to spyware and whatnot. Then I got a warning last night, and one today. Saying that suspicious activity has been found in the firewall and that people might be trying to take personal info.

I have not put any credit card numbers or my social security number or anything. I have put my email account and home address for making an email account. Maybe some other info but nothing obvious I dont think

I deleted my cookies and the history on my comp, thinking that it might help throw spyware stuff off, but really no clue as to how to fix this.

I have this spyware search and destroy program. I scanned and found spyware on my comp. The names of them sound like search engines and porn search engines, where in the hell did this stuff come from? Not only this but my home page is always changed. The worst thing is when I try to correct the spyware problem on thsi spyware software it freezes every time.

what do I do guys? Am I going to have the identity theft problem on me? I am freaking scared of the internet, because I have no clue how this all works.

The scariest thing too is that for a while before I had an antivirus program and whatnot and before I reformatted, this stuff used to happen all the time and I probably had spyware on my computer for over a year.

New spyware has come to my computer though, and what do I do to fix it?

[Timenn]

Spyware is a real problem, there is no easy way to get rid of it.

There are 2 options:

1) reinstall everything from scratch.

2) grab any tool you can find and fight the spyware.

Well, option 1 should only be a final option, and option 2 can be easy or very hard, depending on how bad the situation is.

First of all some tools: (you don't need to download them all at once)

Microsoft AntiSpyware, a good anti-spyware/anti-adware program.

Adaware, another anti-spyware/anti-adware program.

There are more anti-spyware programs, and things one program can't find, can be found by others. But stick to those 2 for the moment.

RegCleaner, with this program you can view registry entries, great for removing programs who start along with Windows while you don't want them to.

Windows Task Manager, press ctrl+alt+del if you want to get that one. The Windows NT/2000/XP is more advanced though.

Second, install one of these anti-spyware programs. I recommend Microsoft Anti-Spyware as first one.

After doing some updates (probably does that by himself after starting the program) run a scan. Remove all results you get from that search, you can check the results for programs that don't belong in that list, but it should be all crap.

When you have removed those, hopefully your computer should be fine. But to be sure, you can always install Adaware, and run a scan with that one as well.

Now restart your computer, and once started, use the anti-spyware programs to run a scan again, this is to make sure there isn't still a program left that brings in the spyware/adware you've just deleted on startup.

If there are no results, you can probably think of your computer as safe.

If new results show up, then there is a bigger problem going on. That's where RegCleaner comes in handy. I'll try to help you with that one if that is the case, but for now try these 2 anti-spyware/anti-adware programs.

[Megashrap]

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ is a really good program.  Also try checking in add/remove programs for things you never installed like toolbars, search engines, side-search programs. I have deleted a bunch of these at on time or another that were never installed by me, but some lame pop-up.  But, that program is really good at getting the job done.

[TMA_1]

wouldnt it be quicker just to back up the few important files I have and just clean the registry and reformat?

[GhostHunter]

There isn't a need to reformat. Use Microsoft Antispyware, make sure it's fully updated and run a full-system spyware scan. It'll clean everything.

[Atomic Mitten]

Another good program is Hijack this, or SpySubtract these 2 will definately get rid of it.

But as with all spyware they usually copy themselves into your System restore points.

In order to get rid of them permanently you need to turn off your system restore points until to run and get rid of the spyware.

Once your satisfied that the Spyware is dead then turn the Restore points back on.

To do this go to System Icon in your Windows control panel, then select System Restore, select the box turn off System Restore on all drives, then exit the System folder and run your previously downloaded Anti Spyware programs.

Another tip is to visit Google downloads page and download the Toolbar, that is if your using IE to browse the Internet, otherwise use Mozilla Firefox the latest version 1.0.4 this blocks alot of spyware by default.

[Andrew]

1.0.4 is the latest public release version of Firefox. Although they do have nightlies available up to 1.1.