Klipschfoot Posted October 3, 2004 Share Posted October 3, 2004 I came downstairs to my computer this AM to find that my Viewpoint had been updated. "I don't own Viewpoint. What is Viewpoint?" I thought to myself. It seems to have been downloaded via AIM with no permission from me. Google "Viewpoint, spyware" and you will come to the same conclusion. It is found in your CONTROL PANELS and even though I used the DELETE PROGRAMS function in Windows, I had to use REGEDIT to get rid of all of it. Thanks again, AOL. A PSA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebes Posted October 3, 2004 Share Posted October 3, 2004 Antivirus software and a firewall are no longer good enough to protect your computer. What you need are two programs: Lavasoft's Ad-aware and Spybot Search and Destroy. (need two because they will find diferent things) Both free downloads and update them ocasionally as the hackers develop new programs. Also clean out your Browser's cookies and run above programs about once a month. Finally I also highly recommend Mozilla for your browser and set up a spam filter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted October 3, 2004 Share Posted October 3, 2004 javacoolsoftware.com has the remedy. Once you rid yourself of all known spyware with one of the above mentioned products (Ad-Aware or Spybot), SpywareBlaster is the only tool you'll ever need from there out. It basically prevents ActiveX bugs that the user does not specifically request from ever being installed. I periodically run AdAware and Spybot on my system - but I have yet, since I installed SpywareBlaster, to find spyware on my system.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted October 3, 2004 Share Posted October 3, 2004 It's too bad that Microsoft requires so much ActiveX controls for its software to work. This is why you must use IE to do Windows updates, because it uses an ActiveX control. Of course, you can get the plugin for Mozilla and Firefox which allows those control to work, and then only allow the MS site to use them. Marvel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klipschfoot Posted October 3, 2004 Author Share Posted October 3, 2004 Yeah, I run the same softwares. The REAL annoyance is the fact that AOL installs it without your consent. I also toss ALL cookies and clear history frequently, and I keep my temporary internet files size at 1MB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted October 3, 2004 Share Posted October 3, 2004 I don't even do Windows Update anymore because even with this computer brand new outta the box, once SP2 was installed I could not do Windows Update sucessfully and now with SP2 out of my computer (since i could not even install adobe acrobat much less anything else) I still can't do windows update. I use Mozilla FireFox for my browser, Mozilla Thunderbird for email and contact management and Mozilla Sunbird for my calendar. I have no problems with any of them and they are all more secure (less Sunbird with is still in alpha/beta stage) than Microsoft programs. I use Ad-Aware, restart and use SpyBot and always have SpyBot Resident and Ad-Watch and SpyBlaster running in the background. My computer is not any slower and I have no spyware on my computer using these programs. I also have Norton Internet Security 2004 Professional which does cause its share of problems with programs like iTunes and AIM, but it has saved me three times since September 7th from severe level attacks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dougdrake Posted October 4, 2004 Share Posted October 4, 2004 Justin - Nice to hear from you! Hope all is well!! Doug Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheEAR Posted October 4, 2004 Share Posted October 4, 2004 Spywares are the greatest problem right now,they have beaten the good ole virus in some ways.A few computers I worked on had over 1400 spywares!1400 spywares,even P4's running at 3GHz with up to 1GB of RAM ran as fast as a P2 233w/64MB RAM running XP! Adaware and SpyBot are two good programs.But some people have a fe and rare spywares that come back after removal!Often these are browser hijacker programs.Irritating and often cured with a reinstall of the OS. Most spywares can be removed with ease by SpyBot and Adaware.Just remember if you do not have a paying version run them twice a week and delete ALL the spyware junk each time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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