Hotmail causing high CPU usage

[Andrew]

Thought I'd start a post to find out how many people are
affected by this problem.

MSN Hotmail's Flash Ads are causing CPU on my machine to
max out, ranging from 90-99%, and the offending process is
IEXPLORE.EXE! The ads are mainly displayed on the Sent
Message Confirmation screen. I emailed Hotmail support and
told them their flash ads are crippling my (& others')
computer, they recommended I use Outlook Express to avoid
the advertising!!!

Ads are tailored to your location. Being in Australia I
get Australian ads, ads I know that utilise high CPU are -
realestate.com.au & ebay.com.au.

Many of these ads come from ninemsn.com.au, you can see
CPU rise when you visit sites on ninemsn such as
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/Entertainment/story_40435.asp.
Sometimes you have to surf around until you get one of the
bad ads (they change constantly). Try the different
articles under ENTERTAINMENT NEWS on the right-hand side.

 

[H Leboeuf]

How To: Deal with Unwanted Pop-ups
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/nopopups.htm
--

The site ninemsn... can be blocked with this HOSTS file.
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm


If you want to verify it this is caused by some known parasites.

Go to http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads.php#det
Download "Hijack This!" [freeware] or download direct (below):
http://www.merijn.org/files/hijackthis.zip

If you get a 404 error or Access denied, try:
http://216.180.252.218/~spywareinfo.com/downloads/tools/hijackthis.zip

Unzip, double-click "HijackThis.exe" and Press "Scan".

When the scan is finished, the "Scan" button will change into a "Save Log"
button.
Click: "Save Log" (generates "hijackthis.log")

Next, HijackThis | Config [button] | Misc Tools [button]
Click: Generate StartupList log [button] (generates "startuplist.txt")

Next, go to the below location:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/forums/

Sign in, then copy and paste both files in your message.

HijackThis Quick Start Help
http://www.tomcoyote.org/hjt/

The Tutorial if you want to know more about the results or the .log file.
http://www.merijn.org/htlogtutorial.html


Henri Leboeuf
Web page: http://www.generation.net/~hleboeuf/index.htm