Spyware and Adware- the Scourge of the Internet?
I notice that recently my computer had been acting quite dumbassed-ly. Long story short, I traced the problem back to this "2nd Thought" shit, because it had always been a not so well working computer before, but now that I had seen this stuff on here that I didn't remember putting on there, it had started to anger me. So I searched it, and I found the best info on Counterexploitation. Turns out there was all kinds of this shit on my computer and all over the internet infesting peoples' computers, slowing them down, freezing them up, making them generally more annoying and hard to work with. You may have spyware and adware if:
- You get popups from out of nowhere, even when you are not at a website that has popups, and sometimes even when you aren't online.
- There's programs and shit on your computer that you don't remember downloading, and no one knows how it got there.
- You receive ads and spam telling you that they sent you the ad because they saw that you were interested in the kind of stuff the ad is for (which is often not true, as in my case).
- Your computer starts downloading and installing stuff without asking you.
These were all problems I had.
If you go to Counterexploitation, and click the "Message Boards" link, you should find all the information you need. In case you are too lazy to do that, I can give you basic stuff here.
Download and install these free programs:
- Spybot Search and Destroy. This program searches your computer for all known spyware/adware files it has in its database, and it shows you a list of all of it. You then may use the same program to erase it all. Very user-friendly if you ask me. Important Note: Make sure the first thing you do when the program is installed is update it. The program works the same way as an anti-virus program and needs regular updates.
- Ad-Aware 6.0. Basically the same as Spybot, except it found some stuff that Spybot didn't. But it works pretty much the same, and it also needs regular updates. Also very user friendly. It's not totally free. It will do other stuff that Spybot doesn't, but you have to pay for it. Explore it yourself because I haven't used it extensively.
- Hijack This, Motherfucker! This program is much more skeletal but it's also useful. It searches for suspicious files on your computer and shows you a list of what you MAYBE should delete. Important Note: BE CAREFUL- Hijack This doesn't know what stuff you should actually delete, only the ones that look suspicious. If you go crazy on your computer out of anger, like I almost did, and start deleting things indiscriminately, it's the equivalent of dropping a nuke on your computer- you'll get what you want, but a lot of other stuff you don't, stuff that your system needs to run properly. So let the guys at Counterexploitation take a look at it and see what you should remove with surgical precision.
It feels liks my computer took a shower now that all this bullshit is gone- it used to be very problematic, but it's been working fine ever since.