Computer moron asking for help.

[lookout123]

ok, all you computer people - it is time to band together and give me, a computer moron some advice.

the computer i am using is a cheesy emachines t1140 - i think it was refurbished, but not sure. i only use it for surfing the net and email, so i don't really care.

but i am overwhelmed with popups and crap like that. i have gone in a couple of times and removed some spyware thing that a friend told me was causing it. hasn't really helped.

i've been told that i need to wipe the whole thing clean and start over.

1)how do i do that?
2) do i need to go buy software to load back on? currently have windows xp.
3) i have cox cable internet, so if i wipe everything won't i lose that too?

[glatt]

If you use Internet Explorer 5.0 or greater, you can download the Google Toolbar for free. It will kill all pop-ups you encounter while surfing the web. It also lets you do Google searches without going to Google's home page first.

If you have more problems than that, then you may need to erase your hard drive. It's a huge pain, and I have no advice for you there.

[Happy Monkey]

Starting over can be a pain. I can't really get into all of the details, but here are a few pointers:

1) Open your "Settings" or "Options" in your favorite programs, like email, web browser, etc., and write down the settings.

2) Download a popup-blocking web browser, a firewall, an antivirus, and one or more adware removers. I use Firefox, ZoneAlarm, eTrust EZ Antivirus, and AdAware. Put the installation files on a CD (along with anything else you want to keep)

3) Find all of the installation CDs that came with your computer and cable installation.

4) Once you reinstall the OS, make sure you install the firewall and the new web browser before you do much web surfing.

[Happy Monkey]

Also, this may be more than you want to worry about, but the last time I decided to start clean, I bought a new hard drive. I then installed it as the master with the old drive as a slave. All of my old data was then still available, and I had all of the advantages of a clean install.

It's easier than making tons of backups, if you're willing to play with hardware.

[Troubleshooter]

Use Mozilla or Firefox.

www.mozilla.org

[xoxoxoBruce]

Here http://www.flexbeta.net/main/article...ge=1&pagenum=8 is a comparison of spyware cleaning programs.

[OnyxCougar]

As a Cox HSI tech support rep, I can tell you what we advise our customers:

(1) Ad-Aware. www.download.com, search for adaware, get build 1.81. Update and run it EVERY DAY! Delete ANY files it finds.

(2) McAfee anti vi and firewall is available through cox.com. It's like 6 bucks a month on your cox bill, and takes 2 days to get the email from McAfee, but it works. If you want free anti vi, I recommend AVG anti virus. Be advised if you DO get the McAfee stuff, cox does not support it, McAfee does, and there is a thread in here somewhere that has a transcript of my experience with McAfee tech support. Read it.

(3) go to support.cox.net, sign in with your primary user name and get the free checkit 86 pop up stopper pro cox offers. While you're there, turn on your free spam blocking option in the email section.

(4) Use crazy browser. www.crazybrowser.com It's free, and works off the IE software, so it's not a pain to learn. Blocks popups and provides tabbed browsing.

(5) Get a secondary browser, like Netscape or Mozilla, in case IE takes a dump. It happens ALL THE TIME.

(6) If you wanna send me your email address, I'll send you a bunch of cox links that may help. There is alot of unused, unread information at support.cox.net.

Let me know how that works.

[Beestie]

I've done the homework. Spysweeper is what you need. It crushed spybot and adaware in comparison tests.

[OnyxCougar]

But that's not free....

[jinx]

You can try it for free. I just did.

[OnyxCougar]

And then, just when you get used to it, they take it away, and you have to fork out the money or get something else.

I'm lazy. I'll go with the free stuff.

[Bitman]

Yeah, get Google toolbar. It's just a great toolbar all around, but the popup stopper is good enough where I haven't installed anything else at home.

But my all time favorite popup stopper is Pop-Up Stopper Free Edition. It kills ALL popups. I mean, if you click the IE button on your desktop twice, it'll bounce the second one. Leave one IE open, and no program will be able to open another.

[jaguar]

Ad-Aware and Spybot together can catch most stuff but if it's firmly entrenched and you don't have the knowledge to dig the registry and identify running processes catching some of the tricker ones (start two processes, kill one the other restarts it and other tricks) can be next to impossible.

A clean start, a copy of both run regularly and a copy of Firefox or Opera is probably the most effective option but the most work. Popups are annoying and are probably being caused by spyware on your machine rather than websites, if you do choose to continue to use IE, disable ActiveX, that's where most of the really icky stuff comes from.

buying a mac works too

[lookout123]

i used the google toolbar the 1st day i started this thread but i was actually getting more popups coming through. maybe it shouldn't be run alongside msn popup blocker?


either way i am on cox dsl, so i followed OC's advice and downloaded adaware 181. we'll see how that goes.
thanks

[jaguar]

probably coming from spyware rather than websites. After ad-aware try this
Hit ctrl-alt-del, look at the process list and google each one as in "spyware.exe", look at the results and it'll usually be clear if it's spyware or not. Once you've gone though the list, run ad-aware again.