Adware, Spyware and Scumware warning!

Bringing this old thread back to life again.. :)

After browsing trhough my server logs now, I believe a lot of you may need do do some christmas cleaning on your computers.. ;)

I've discovered that several of you (don't know who, just the IPs) have a lot of different ad/spy/scum/malware etc.. installed on your computers..

Funwebproducts seems to be the "winner" of those kind of things..

Read through some of the first posts in this thread to find some good tips on how you can deal with these kind of things.. :)

Feel free to add to this thread yourself if you have some more knowledge on the subject...
 
I'm pretty paranoid when it comes to spyware and they did a test for anti-spyware programs in here and the winner is GIANT Antispyware. It managed to identify & remove 100 out of 134 spyware items where Spybot S&D managed to identify just 40 and Ad-Aware 82.

I've been trying the program for a week now and I think it's pretty good. Active memory&browser shields take a lot less processing power than in Webroot Spysweeper which was my previous choice and Giant also scans pretty fast.

Here are some links.

http://www.giantcompany.com/ - Home of Giant Antispyware.
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ehowes/www/main-nf.htm - Great infosite.
http://www.lavasoft.com/ - Home of Ad-Aware.
 
lavasoft adaware is a good program because they have a forum setup so if the program picks up something and you can't delete it just show it to their forum and they'll tell you what to do. usually in those situation it involves registry editing and they have a step by step process that'll walk you through it. they're pretty good about those things.
 
im on holidays and bored so at the moment i am trying to compile a list of useful utilities.
this site:
http://topcc.org/utilities.html has a lot of good links to programs on it
so far:
spybot search and destroy
lavasoft adaware
Acrobat reader
Core FTP http://www.download.com/Core-FTP-Lite/3000-2160_4-10256215.html?tag=lst-0-1
Firefox http://www.mozilla.org/
Hijackthis http://www.spychecker.com/program/hijackthis.html
Sandra http://www.download.com/SANDRA-Lite/3000-2086_4-10339764.html?tag=lst-0-1
(sandra is an awesome program which monitors pretty much your entire computer. it also has benchmarking capabilities)
Trillian www.ceruleanstudios.com
Powertools - from microsoft.com
winzip and winrar
zonealarm
 
rOk said:
@ Redleg

Can you post the IP's?
Click to expand...

Hm..
Then I'll have to go through 2gb of server logs again... :?

It's at least 30-40 unique IPs pr day for Funwebproducts alone, so it will be too many IPs to post here.
 
Hegario said:
I'm pretty paranoid when it comes to spyware and they did a test for anti-spyware programs in here and the winner is GIANT Antispyware. It managed to identify & remove 100 out of 134 spyware items where Spybot S&D managed to identify just 40 and Ad-Aware 82.
.......

http://www.giantcompany.com/ - Home of Giant Antispyware.
.
Click to expand...

It is the best! :)

I've downloaded and tried it now.
It identified two dialers (luckily I have ADSL...) and a couple of other low thread adware scripts that ad-aware and spybot s&D didn't find...
 
Hi,

:shock: wow nice catch :D.

Let me add a few things to this thread which provides nice info about some things.

Adware/Spyware :-> not always bad ........Spyware is considered bad but Adware sometimes Come bundeled with the Freeware programs you download it's a way to put Advertisments into it........they have to earn some money too .

You can use AD-Aware and Spybot to remover.

and all you find with them is not bad ................i have seen a few useful programs start to stop working after you reove the Adaware in them........like my ISP had Gator Advertisments in it AD-Aware remover the gator Ads and it stopped working.

Scumware as you put it includes everythig that is bad ( Virus , Trojans , Worms and Adware/spywares too ) it is also called malware.

P2P and P0rn are the major sources of Scumware ...............the programs you donnlwoad form P2P might be bundeled with a virus or trojan you just can't trust it so try to get it form the Authors Web Site.

For Virus you require an Antivirus .....................but one thing to remember is Antivirus are not particullarly good when it comes to Trojans and worms ..there are plenty of free of them as said earlier AVG Free Edition is the best according to me .

For Trojans and Worms i don't Trust Antivirus they catch a few of them but fail most of the time....... i would recommend Download TDS-3 Anti-Trojan System and Moosoft the Cleaner ..................TDS i think is the best .

And Updating Your Windows is also important................ Microsoft launches Security patches regularly .................hackers and trojans use holes in your OS to attack your Computer .............Microsoft tries to patch these holes as soon as they find them so pressing that Windows Update button on a regular basis is not a bad thing at all or you can Click on this link to update your Windows Operation System update your OS regularly.. --> http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

and there is one another kind of Scumware called the Browser hijacks or the Cool Web Search Trojan.............when you find that your Internet explorer Browser home page is being changed to some Website you haven't set it to .there are chances it is the CWS Trojan

CWShredder is a good tool against it and Verson 2.1 releasd today press the little Update button now.

.............and about HijackThis ........it is a good dignostic tool but i wouldn't recommend it to everyone ..........until you know what you are looking for don't try to play with it it is dangerous too ..........you might delete some useful things with it .........not for non-tech people.


one good option is to Stop Using Internet Explorer altogether and you will see less and less Spyware and Adware in your scans :D ..............being the most widely used used Browser IE it is more attacked too ..................i would recommend Mozilla FireFox ..............it's Faster and still Hijack Free ......there is still no known browser hijack for it.


and the most Important thing to remember ...................with all these tools and they are useless Unless you update them ..............They are as good as their reference files ....................so don't forget to update them once every week ..................or it's not even worth installing them .

So Update you Antivirus and AD-Aware or Spybot regularly ...............or they would be useless .....................always keep the latest verson alwys keep their reference Files updated ..............every minute a new virus is written .......and that makes them useless against the new ones if you don't update them .


-=SF_13=-
 
Good info SwordFish.. :)

SwordFish_13 said:
Adware/Spyware :-> not always bad ........Spyware is considered bad but Adware sometimes Come bundeled with the Freeware programs you download it's a way to put Advertisments into it........they have to earn some money too .
Click to expand...

I can add that the Alexa toolbar does also raise big red flags on most adware/spyware removers, but it's not really harmfull at all.
It just records some info about your surfing habbits to update the Alexa ranking etc..

I find the toolbar quite helpfull, especially to find related sites to the ones I'm currently visiting.. :)

You can download it here:
http://download.alexa.com/index.cgi?p=Dest_W_t_40_B2
 
Hi,

Alexa toolbar is considered a Spyware ...................and your AD-Aware or Spyware will report it and remove it on scanning................it is reported as collecting Information about your Surfing habits and reporting this to a host site.................actually your Surfing habits is a invaluale data to Advertise they than Bombard you with relevent advertisements............Advertisers are getting Smarter day by day ..:D

Alexa Refuses these claims and say they don't pass on this information to anybody....................Actually the Sher amount of Information it collects about surfing habits scare a few people

Most of th Spyware Removal programs Admit that Alexa have stopped Spying on people ....but they remove it on precaunary measures
Official Description: Alexa web search -- a new kind of search engine. With traffic rankings, user reviews and other information about sites, Alexa is a web site discovery tool. Features an Amazon shopping button on the product and anonymously aggregates surfing information. Provides clear EULA as well as opt-out instructions.

Alexa web search combines the powerful Google search engine with Alexa's comprehensive site information and puts it all inside an Amazon.com interface.

Comment: Used to transmit a indentifiying ID but no longer does this.

To make things clear people who have difficulty understanding this:

At this time, we do NOT consider this program to be a form of "spyware".

Note- There have been reports that secure URLs can be sent when using the "Related Site Function" due to a security flaw in Internet Explorer.
Click to expand...
http://www.spywareguide.com/product_show.php?id=418

The Alexa toolbar

We've received many requests as to whether the Alexa toolbar is spyware or not. Well, the Alexa toolbar which is available for download contains spyware agents (it is a MS Internet Explorer key that points to a MS DLL and MS HTML file. This redirects to a page, and that page redirects to the Alexa web site), whereby information about your web surfing is gathered for statistics purposes to fuel the Alexa ranking system. The Alexa toolbar is a Browser Helper Object (BHO), which is a component of Internet Explorer that will load whenever it starts, shares IE's memory context, can perform any action on the available windows and modules. It collects and stores information about the web pages you view, the data you enter in online forms and search fields, and, with versions 5.0 and higher, the products you purchase online while using the toolbar service. Whether or not the owner (Amazon.com) of Alexa does other things with this information is not known.
Click to expand...

http://simplythebest.net/info/spyware/alexa_spyware.html

I would personally recommend Use Yahoo ToolBar or Google Toolbar Instead............. They have Inbulit Pop-up-Blocker and easy Search option :).................It's a very thin line Alexa is walking on and the temptation to cross the line is huge for them.................and looking at their past record emmm no very hard to trust them :?

In short Programs like Alexa are considered malware because the information they collect can be easily Misused by them ...............and they have been known to Mis-use it in the past ...............they might not be doing it today .............but because tthey have done it in the past tey might do it in the future


-=SF_13=-
 
I use the google toolbar all the time, but I like the suggested sites on the Alexa bar, so I turn it on from time to time to find related sites, and I'm not too worried about the "spyware" in there.. :)
 
I edited your post a bit, it said yrl not url, so the link didn't work... ;)

I tried Giant antispyware a while ago, it worked great, but I found it to be a bit too paranoid about harmless cookies and pop-ups... :?

But I'll guess I can give this one a try as well soon anyway.. :)
 
Hi,

Thanx Redleg ,

it's a Beta verson so it is Bound to be Buggy .............i would'nt suggest New Users (new to Computers) Give it a Try just yet.

But i am Impressed MIcrosoft has really Worked a bit on this ..............Good Install , Decent Interface, and easy to use and Configure interface...................Doesn't look/feel like a beta at all :)

-It comes with real-time protection

-The scan results are extremely detailed

But it's giving me too many False Positives .............Microsoft has a few Things to sort out sitll in this ................eg it Picked up WinPCap as a Spyware :roll:

And this wouldn't work on windows 9X ............minimum Windows 2000 or Above........waaaa Microsoft is Stopping giving support to Windows 98 users waaaaa

All in all Promises a great deal..............wonder what will be it's Price when it is finally relelased.

Peace
-=SF_13=-
 
I'm not surprised that it gives you false positives, since it's based on Giants engine (and probably "improved" a bit by Microsoft as well.. :lol: )
 
I've been requested pr PM to make this one a Sticky, so here we go.. :)

A lot of usefull info in here..

You can also visit www.spyber.com for a quick spy/adware scan, and find many good and free internet security resources.

Feel free to contribute in this thread if you know of any other usefull resources or tips. :)
 
hey guys
iv had some probs with my computer recently, adware bs type stuff and the usual programs weren't doing anything. i ran spybot, i ran adaware, i ran norton, nothing got rid of this insidious little program so started searching around for forums where someone could give me a hand and i came across Bleeping Computer: Computer Help and Spyware Removal they were ace, what you do is download "hijackthis" ( a VERY good program, tells you whats running on your computer and whats downloaded itself etc) and then post a log of the results of the scan on thier forum. then one of their mods will come and give you the steps you need to get rid of whatever is ailing you.
and they do a damn good job, i dont know how they know what they do, or how they know how to fix stuff but im glad they do, i cannot reccommend this forum highly enough if you have something on your computer
 
You can also go to www.spyber.com and download hijackthis there.
I've also added a link to a great (and free) automated hijackthis log file analyzer at the bottom there.. :)

Hijackthis is a great program, but it's not a good idea to delete anything unless you're 100% sure what you're doing..

You can also post your spy/adware problems in this part of the forum, there are a few members here (me included) that knows a thing or two about removing pests like that.. :rambo:
 
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