Spyware Battle

[DarqFlare]

Tonight, the battle between spyware and myself has gone for an hour and a half... Initially spyware was kicking my butt, but I had it down pretty far. Unfortunately, some little tiny bugger is stuck on here somewhere that keeps helping this crap get back onto my computer.

 

Once I find that little piece of unethical code and remove it with a vengeance, I will have my laptop back...

 

Anybody know how to get rid of xlime.offeroptimizer at all?

[TCH-Rob]

delete from C:\windows

bi.dll

bi.ini

biprep.exe

 

run MSCONFIG.EXE

uncheck bi related link

 

Done (reboot) .

 

Cant promise it will work but it is something to try. Might try spybouncer.com too. They say they can get rid of it.

Edited August 14, 2004 by TCH-Rob

[borfast]

Or try that new adaware thing version. I never used it but thomas (I think) said there's a new version out and it's pretty good.

http://www.totalchoicehosting.com/forums/i...howtopic=12112&

 

PS - It was not thomas, it was youneverknow.

[TCH-Thomas]

I have tried the new ad-aware though. Cant say it works since it didnt find anything but the usual cookies and alexa.

[Deverill]

I have tried the new ad-aware though. Cant say it works since it didnt find anything but the usual cookies and alexa.

Oh, it works. It cleared a bunch of stuff off of my machine after I did something known to load junk. It found things I'd never heard of and was a bit better in this case than spybot.

[DarqFlare]

I've got both Ad-Aware (Updated to newest reference file) and Spybot. I'm going to put HijackThis! on my 256 USB stick and get it on there.. I've removed the Internet from the laptop for the time being.

[danceswithscissors]

How come the updated versions of AdAware, AVG, and MacAfee can't see the Blaster Worm? My MIL's computer had it, kept getting little windows saying so, and I finally had to go to Symantec and download a special removal tool to get rid of it. My faith in these protection programs isn't what it used to be

[Deverill]

It's just like Symantec and Sircam. We have put in calls most every update and they say "Yeah, we can detect it but we don't remove it or block it from coming back." Well, what use are they then?

[danceswithscissors]

This is one of the reasons I've become *Queen of Reformats*. I used to run AdAware and AVG daily, but now I just keep everything on CD. I can reformat and be back online with the basics in under an hour.

[DarqFlare]

Nice!

 

I had to reformat about 6 times from October to April, so I'm well accustomed as to how to install my system as I want to.

 

After about 4 cumulative hours of working on my laptop, it is finally spyware free.

[danceswithscissors]

Congrats Robert!

[Samrc]

Congrats on the cleaning!

 

I spent a bit more than 3 hours on a friend's machine recently trying to accomplish the same thing. This person, and 2 others in his family, had been on the internet for 3 years with no protection at all on the machine! He asked me to come by when he couldn't get on the web at all...Seems the machine had been slow for about a year but he thought that was normal.

 

Turns out that I installed (from a usb pen) Ad aware from 6 months ago. It had to be rebooted to finish. Once I got him back on the web, I updated and ran it again. In total 1177 items were found...only 300-325 were cookies, all the rest were pieces of scum that had in infiltrated his machine. I could not believe the list of crud...every shopping assist, time, day, calendar, toolbar, buddy, etc you can name, he had!

 

Then I started with antivirus. OH MY.... what a MESS. We got him back and functional, but the antivirus program AVG does not allow Outlook Express to have more than one identity....so everything is in one for now. He does not want to purchase an antivirus program that will support more than one I predict that within the week all the work I did to clean will be undone....

 

Conspiracy theory: Is it possible that the companies that are built around these adware, or viruses, etc could be making or supporting the yuck so you have no choice but to purchase software for defense?

 

There will be a special place in HELL for people that write virus, trojan or adware code and they will be forced to share with SPAMMERS.

 

-Samantha

[TCH-Rob]

Conspiracy theory: Is it possible that the companies that are built around these adware, or viruses, etc could be making or supporting the yuck so you have no choice but to purchase software for defense?

 

Interesting theory and one that has come up often. Would you need an AV solution if there were no one releasinf any viri or spyware solutions if there were no companies doing that? They feed off each other.

[Deverill]

Very interesting theory that I have heard a lot.

 

Truth is, though, that although the anti-guys may be feeding the virus-guys now (or not), we would still have viruses without them. I remember back in the mid 80's seeing harmless virus-type programs... it would only be a matter of time until they got ugly.

 

For fun check out catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html and search for the term "Motorola". Read about Robin Hood and Friar Tuck ... and this was in the 70's.