Computer people
- Thread starter Denaluvscorgis
- Start date
Mozilla is fine but it's not going to help Dena's current problem. Also, Mozilla isn't immune to problems. At work I am responsible for security on over 100 servers, and the software we use to scan for issues shows numerous patches for Mozilla as well, so don't be lured into a content state because you aren't using IE.
Dena, you need to make sure your virus definitions are all up to date and run a full scan. Also download some kind of free spyware detection/removal tool. Microsoft has a pretty good free one and there are others out there as well. I use one from McAfee that comcast gives you for free. Your internet provider probably gives out tools like that too. Run that and let it kill anything that it finds. Go into internet explorer and go to the internet options screen and delete all the temporary files including cookies. Make sure you have all the microsoft patches installed.
Dena, you need to make sure your virus definitions are all up to date and run a full scan. Also download some kind of free spyware detection/removal tool. Microsoft has a pretty good free one and there are others out there as well. I use one from McAfee that comcast gives you for free. Your internet provider probably gives out tools like that too. Run that and let it kill anything that it finds. Go into internet explorer and go to the internet options screen and delete all the temporary files including cookies. Make sure you have all the microsoft patches installed.
Ok.. getting rid of spyware can be a painful task...
There are a few standard tools that can be used to remove a lot of it, but there are many pieces of spyware that need less common tools to be removed. And many of them have to be removed manually, file by file.
In the end the only way to completely guarantee a clean system is to do a clean install of Windows.. But here are some things to try..
-Download Adaware personal at www.lavasoft.com
-Download Spybot from http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html
-Download AVG Antispyware at http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5
Install all of these files and update them all..
Restart your computer in Safe Mode- (press F at bootup and select safe mode)
Go to Control Panel, click on Folder Options, click on the View Tab.
Uncheck "Hide Protected Operating System Files"
Click the bubble for "Show Hidden Files and Folders"
Run Adaware first.. delete all of the entries that it finds (if you right click on all of the spyware that it finds and hit select all, you won't have to check them all separately)
Run Spybot and let it fix all of the problems.
Run AVG Antispyware and tell it to delete all of the problems that it finds.. (This scan will take at least an hour to finish)
Now, you want to restart to Normal Mode, disable any antivirus that is running on your machine, and go to
http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/ActiveScan.htm
And run an online scan of your system.. Save the log when it is finished.
There are a few standard tools that can be used to remove a lot of it, but there are many pieces of spyware that need less common tools to be removed. And many of them have to be removed manually, file by file.
In the end the only way to completely guarantee a clean system is to do a clean install of Windows.. But here are some things to try..
-Download Adaware personal at www.lavasoft.com
-Download Spybot from http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html
-Download AVG Antispyware at http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5
Install all of these files and update them all..
Restart your computer in Safe Mode- (press F at bootup and select safe mode)
Go to Control Panel, click on Folder Options, click on the View Tab.
Uncheck "Hide Protected Operating System Files"
Click the bubble for "Show Hidden Files and Folders"
Run Adaware first.. delete all of the entries that it finds (if you right click on all of the spyware that it finds and hit select all, you won't have to check them all separately)
Run Spybot and let it fix all of the problems.
Run AVG Antispyware and tell it to delete all of the problems that it finds.. (This scan will take at least an hour to finish)
Now, you want to restart to Normal Mode, disable any antivirus that is running on your machine, and go to
http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/ActiveScan.htm
And run an online scan of your system.. Save the log when it is finished.
the only problem with the microsoft updates comes if you don't already have Service Pack 2 installed..
You don't want to install SP2 if your system is already infected.. You need to make sure that everything is clean before you upgrade to SP2. If you have it already, then yeah go ahead and make sure all of the patches are up to date..
There is a program called Cleanup that will delete all of the temporary files on the system.. It's a good idea to do this before running the spyware scans, because it can cut back on time by a bunch.
You don't want to install SP2 if your system is already infected.. You need to make sure that everything is clean before you upgrade to SP2. If you have it already, then yeah go ahead and make sure all of the patches are up to date..
There is a program called Cleanup that will delete all of the temporary files on the system.. It's a good idea to do this before running the spyware scans, because it can cut back on time by a bunch.