Perplexed said:
My system has been infected with two programs that generate messages that I
have a virus or spyware and lead me to a site that offers to sell
removal/protection software. Norton scans do not reveal any virus or spyware
infection and I would like to delete the two programs which are causing the
messages but cannot as they appear to be continually loaded/active.
Any help on overcoming this will be welcome.
To find and/or deal with issues caused by any sort of "adware"
and/or "spyware,"such as Gator, Comet Cursors, Xupiter, Bonzai Buddy, or
KaZaA, and their remnants, that you've deliberately (but without
understanding the consequences) installed, two products that are quite
effective (at finding and removing this type of scumware) are Ad-Aware
from
www.lavasoft.de and SpyBot Search & Destroy from
www.safer-networking.org/. Both have free versions. It's even possible
to use SpyBot Search & Destroy to "immunize" your system against most
future intrusions. I use both and generally perform manual scans every
week or so to clean out cookies, etc.
Additionally, manual removal instructions for the most common
varieties of scumware are available here:
PC Hell Spyware and Adware Removal Help
http://www.pchell.com/support/spyware.shtml
More information and assistance is available at these sites:
Blocking Ads, Parasites, and Hijackers with a Hosts File
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
The Parasite Fight
http://www.aumha.org/a/parasite.htm
--
Bruce Chambers
Help us help you:
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin
Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell