• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

OT: Major revelation in dealing with browser hijackings!!

Started by comicwiz,

22 posts in this topic

comicwiz

comicwiz

Posted
Posted

I'm normally very skeptical about trying free software, however, after doing a considerable amount of research in the last month to deal with the amount of browser hijackings, and spyware on client machines in my network, I just had to share this advice with my fellow forumites.

 

The application may be well known to some of the tech savvy on these boards. There are a range of others, and prices start at around $36 (Canadian). However, I have tested those applications, and found very little difference between them and the freeware I'm going to recommend.

 

If you've had any major slow-downs occur on your machine, download music over the web, or do a fair bit of surfing -- download SpyBot S&D (Search and Destroy)!!

 

Its a freeware application (they do ask for a donation on the download page), and it has done something that none of the anti-virus software companies were able to do. Remove any spyware from my machine.

 

I consider myself a fairly technical person. After running this software on my main computer, I found 48 different applications installed in hidden areas of my computer, executing behind the scene. By removing them, I have also ran some tests and noticed that it has made my PC environment less amenable to browser hijackings. Not to say that it will fully prevent it, however, by removing spyware ad software apps, the hijackings must now go through my firewall, my anit-virus, and then Spybot.

 

A few quick points. Once you have installed Spybot, you can perform a search. After the search reports any findings, you could select "fix selected problems" -- however, my suggestion would be to read the Help section very carefully. These are mostly registry entries -- keys, files (of a dll nature), and other registry related commands and functions. This program cleverly allows you to recover in the event of a mistake, but I would suggest going through it carefully before peforming any actions.

 

If there is any recommendation you should heed from me on these boards, its this one!! hi.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Hensley300

Hensley300

Posted
Posted

Yes, I have been using this program in conjunction with ad-ware 6 and its payversion ad-ware 3 on top of zonealarm firewall and up to date norton anti-virus software. Take his advice on the spybot, i deleted some registry files that hp put in my cpu for their own tracking purposes (called backweb) and my cpu has been slower eversince (considerably slower). The only thing that will return your cpu to normal after this is a system restore and you loose your files or any programs that have keys that cannot be copied. Another note: since I do use all of these programs, if you want an all in one virus protection, anti-spyware and personal firewall I have heard MCaffrie (? spelling) is a great program to use and you do not have to deal with all of these individual programs. That is what I will be going to after my one year subscription runs out on norton anti-virus-John

Link to comment
Share on other sites
deathlok

deathlok

Posted
Posted

I also use Spybot on a regular basis. It's amazing the amount of stuff companies will download into your computer. I had a lot of stuff from MSN, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc. Some of it was registry stuff, but most was ad-related stuff. If anyone does try Spybot, be sure to get the updates.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
OldGuy

OldGuy

Posted
Posted

At work we use Spybot, Ad-Aware and Pest Patrol. The reason we use all three is that they all find things that the others don't. If I could use only one it would be Pest Patrol as it finds more then the other two.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
comicwiz

comicwiz

Posted
  • Author
Posted

HIJACK THIS!, which is a GREAT anti-highjacking program.

 

Good point FD; I have used Hijack this, and found it to be a better preventative tool than Spybot, but its weaker in the area of immunization (fixing) or recovering. So its almost necessary to have both to handle both aspects.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
comicwiz

comicwiz

Posted
  • Author
Posted

At work we use Spybot, Ad-Aware and Pest Patrol. The reason we use all three is that they all find things that the others don't. If I could use only one it would be Pest Patrol as it finds more then the other two.

 

Yes, Ad-Aware is a very good program Brian. And you are right -- as FD has pointed out, you almost need different programs to deal with each aspect of spyware threats.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
comicwiz

comicwiz

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I have heard MCaffrie (? spelling) is a great program to use and you do not have to deal with all of these individual programs. That is what I will be going to after my one year subscription runs out on norton anti-virus-John

 

Hey John

 

I have heard the exact same thing. I have also heard Norton/Symantec plans to have an all-in-one solution -- but I've been hearing this for over a year now, and nothing yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
OldGuy

OldGuy

Posted
Posted
I have heard MCaffrie (? spelling) is a great program to use and you do not have to deal with all of these individual programs. That is what I will be going to after my one year subscription runs out on norton anti-virus-John

 

Don't dump Norton for McAfee just yet. At this point neither program addresses most of the issues being discussed here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
blutobc

blutobc

Posted
Posted

Using spybot I was able to find out that I had spyware posing as Norton Internet Security...which NIS was unable to locate. Had the same file names, just different capitalization. Got rid of the files and lo and behold it cured a slow startup issue, i.e. the bogus program loading at startup. So yes...I like spybot, it's my new friend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Aces

Aces

Posted
Posted

I don't know anything techy about it but this spy-bot found over 100 893whatthe.gif sercurity risks that my adware missed.

 

Plus it immunized my IE that had over 150 "holes"... confused.gif

 

893frustrated.gif

 

I hope things run smoother now... shy.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Go to topic listing