I hadn't run any spy killer software in some time so I ran Spybot last night. It didn't find anything.
Then I downloaded Ad Aware and it found over 90 tracking cookies. Guess which one I'm going to use in the future.
Rico
McAfee has a program called QuickClean that I've been using for years... the new version also checks for spyware, but the main thing is cleaning up all the old remnants and internet garbage.
Well, I just ran QuickClean on my XP machine. QuickClean found 397 files (1.67 million bytes freed up) that could be removed... I ran Spybot a few minutes ago and Ad-Aware yesterday, so these are just application remnants, internet junk, and invalid shortcuts. It really made a difference in the performance of the old machine (so did upgrading to the max amount of ram memory that it would take)... so I'll have to see what happens on this faster (2.2Ghz) machine. Good luck, David
Got two computers. One old one which was getting quite slow. Ran Spybot and found a ton of junk in my computer. Took a few hours and got rid of all the crap and seems to be running good now. I noticed when checking the computer the system would seem to stop on the old computer and found it best to just let it scan and go take a break while it is checking. The newer computer takes little time to scan. Need to update the Spybot every so often. Now you need to go to PCPitstop and run his scan for how your computer is working.Great program and it will find lot's of little glitches in your computer. Go to
If javascript is disabled, this kills most of the popups.
This reinforces the idea in my mind that javascript is a bad thing. They're running applets on the machines that install the spyware.
Jim
================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================
Windows/IE has 3. Others can install when viewing web pages. Beware of Java trackers too. One is "awstats", and will be found in your "temporary internet files" folder in Windows.
Steve R.
You have to run SpyBot to make it work. It's not automatic. It gives options during install on where it places shortcuts. I turned all of them off and just run it from the program list.
Wayne Cook Shamrock, TX
Yeah. In the trials I've run, Adaware always finds things that Spybot misses.
Gary
Lots of spyware are cookie based (javascript) and Active-X based as well as good old fashioned malware (dialers etc).
On 9 Oct 2003 20:46:42 -0700, jim rozen wrote something ......and in reply I say!:
"This guy's a dinosaur and not worth checking out!"
****************************************************************************************** Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. The rest sit around and make snide comments.Nick White --- HEAD:Hertz Music Please remove ns from my header address to reply via email !!
On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 16:45:29 GMT, Larry Jaques wrote something ......and in reply I say!:
There is a resident portion in beta. This could be confusing, if you are expecting it to behave like a resident Virus checker.
****************************************************************************************** Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. The rest sit around and make snide comments.Nick White --- HEAD:Hertz Music Please remove ns from my header address to reply via email !!
On 9 Oct 2003 23:50:15 -0400, snipped-for-privacy@d-and-d.com (DoN. Nichols) wrote something ......and in reply I say!:
I use Free Agent, so I OE for email, and IE to surf. I should be vulnerable
No. I will check that out.
Yep. My sites are limited to quite specific stuff, usually. So I do not "drop in" on a lot.
But I can't, because I don't visit _those_ types of sites!
****************************************************************************************** Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. The rest sit around and make snide comments.Nick White --- HEAD:Hertz Music Please remove ns from my header address to reply via email !!
On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 10:03:08 -0700, D.B. wrote something ......and in reply I say!:
Well, that's strange because on my apparently very nearly clean machine, Spybot found more than Ad-Aware, both run as default! (less than 5 overall. Spybot found more _types_ of nasty than Ad-Aware indicated.
Shrug! Maybe the answser is....BOTH!?
****************************************************************************************** Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. The rest sit around and make snide comments.Nick White --- HEAD:Hertz Music Please remove ns from my header address to reply via email !!
Anyone who configures their browser to allow Active-X compionents to run on untrusted sites deserves everything they get!
However, there's a huge amount of paranoia surrounding things like "web bugs" and other bonafide traffic measurement tools.
Remember that, if your browser is correctly set up (and not Internet Explorer which is a bomb just waiting to go off) then the only info a website can get from you is your IP number and any cookies that *it* has previously issued to you.
The real problem is that most people use Internet Explorer and, as one respected industry publication recently put it "it has been a long running theme that at almost any given point, there is a remotely exploitable bug in Internet Exporer."
Which basically means that the thing has more holes in it than swiss cheese and even Microsoft admits that it's going to be more than a little while before they're on top of the problems.
For this reason, I don't use IE at all. There are plenty of alternatives out there that are infinitely more secure and some of them offer some really great featuers not found in IE (such as tabs so that you can open several websites at once and jump betwen them by clicking on the relevant tab).
Check out Opera, Firebird, Mozilla and others.
I've got nothing against Microsoft or its products per se, it's simply that the company doesn't understand the meaning of the word "secure" when it comes to internet software.
That ends this public safety message.
-- you can contact me via
On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 11:35:32 +1300, Bruce Simpson wrote something ......and in reply I say!:
As was said before here, if IE fell off the planet tomorrow, and another surfer took over, then suddenly _it_ would be "full of holes and bugs", because so far nobody has seen it worthwhile to attack or test the others.
****************************************************************************************** Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. The rest sit around and make snide comments.Nick White --- HEAD:Hertz Music Please remove ns from my header address to reply via email !!
On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 09:35:42 +0800, Old Nick wrote something ......and in reply I say!:
Not much apparently.......
Just a note on this site: you don't *have* to provide your email address - you can log in anonymously. If you type in something that resembles an email address (I used snipped-for-privacy@aaa.aaa) and six characters for a password it will bring you to an unknown user page that will allow you to log in and test anonymously.
chem
Mike wrote:
Some products are better designed than others. If you run around with your mouth open, don't be surprised if you gather a some flies.
Ted
That's one way to put it. IE comes with the doors and windopws wide open and the parts for the locks hidden in a closet. Some of the competing browsers come with the doors and windows closed and the locks assembled and operable. To say that other browsers have as poor an as-installed security level as IE is the same as saying all lathes are the same.
Dick
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