Spyware etc

Post by **PaulH** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 11:28 pm

I am having some real problems with spyware and browser hijackers. I wonder if anybody has some good tips or knows of any good programmes that are available.

I have optimized the internet options for all users of my computer (4 of us!) ie ActiveX settings, security, temp pages, cookie management etc and use the free programmes Spyblaster and Spyguard. I also scan with Adaware and use Cookiewall but I still keep getting nasty shit appearing. Spyblaster seems pretty good at stopping some of the more common spyware but 'Coolweb' seems invincible! I have this sodding about:blank bug too!

Any help from you experts out there will be really appreciated.

Paul

Post by **Gambit37** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 12:25 am

Why are you still using IE? It's the most compromised and compromisable browser out there.

Solution: Firefox

Post by **PaulH** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 12:44 am

I only use the IE browser to view this page, as it does not function correctly with AOL's browser (invalid session message). Which is strange, given that the AOL browser is a version of IE which is exactly why the settings I listed above need to be maintained. I think.

So do you think that changing the AOL browser to Firefox for all computer accounts, and AOL sub accounts, is the way forward? I have a limited computer knowledge. My Mother has even less if possible.

Post by **Gambit37** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 12:49 am

Well, I don't know much about AOL. But I believe that the latest versions of it actually use Gecko -- the rendering engine for all Mozilla browsers including Firefox. Does AOL tie you in to their own browser?

If not, then yes I would recommend switching to Firefox as it does not use ActiveX or any of the built in Windows stuff, which in turn means it cannot be compromised in the same way as IE can. Sure, it still has issues like all browsers do, but it's way more secure than IE, has much better standards support, faster page rendering, tabbed browsing, loads of extensions/plugins and all kinds of superior browsing features.

maybe some of the others here can offer help for switiching from AOL?

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 8:05 am

ok... let's hear it from a die hard IE user.. I WOULD NOT use anything but IE for the longest time.. after some spyware bent me over and had it's way with me recently, forcing me to reinstall windows from scratch and all my programs, I decided it was time to try something else. You see IE has a lot of thing in it that allow M$ to install things on your system. Now this is good if it's only M$ that could use it to help you. However.. that's not the case. I had a lot of crap installed on my system that I had never installed. I'm by no means a moron when it comes to computers. I have the responsibility of 50 networked computers with a variety of software that I need to install and maintain. So it's not as if I would have installed it willingly.. which means it was installed as I surfed the web.

To date so far.. I've had none of the bad popups I used to get, I have had not a single unwanted install happen and I could not be happier with Firefox for this.

Some things don't show up 100% correct and sometimes images can take a while to load (not always.. seems specific sites) however all in all.. the minor things are so small in comparison to the saftey I now have.

moo

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 8:52 am

The latest Adaware SE seems to be very good at spyware checking, also Spybot - Search and Destroy is good. Hikack This! seems good to get rid of infections too

Bue really, switch off of IE, definitely to Mozilla Firefox. You can even get a plug in that lets you right click on sights and open them in IE if they really are displaying badly....
But the securioty holes and the time to action on them in IE, if any is taken, is ridiculous!

I forget the name of the site that lists the vulnerabilities and the actions taken/pending...s somehting...

Post by **Gambit37** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 9:59 am

Some things don't show up 100%

Heh -- that's most likely not the case. I have discovered a lot recently regarding how things *should* be rendered according to the standard specs, and it turns out that many people say the same thing when switching from IE to Firefox. Guess what? It's rarely Firefox that is the problem, it's IE -- because it actually renders a lot of stuff incorrectly, but so many people used it for so long that everyone assumed it was "right"!

Florent · Post by **Florent** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 11:21 am

Gambit37 wrote:It's rarely Firefox that is the problem, it's IE -- because it actually renders a lot of stuff incorrectly, but so many people used it for so long that everyone assumed it was "right"!

Sing it !

Switch to Firefox everyone ! www.getfirefox.com

Seriously : Paul, you may have a problem with AOL since it does tie you to a specific browser. The AOL browser is based on IE, therefore it is shite. However I have heard that they were considering changing to a Firefox style browser (Gecko based), which is a good thing. I would recommend changing ISP anyway, since AOL ties you down to proprietary software.

Finally : you need to lay off the porn sites

(and warez, crackz, appz etc. and be careful with P2P downloads)

sucinum · Post by **sucinum** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 5:33 pm

against nasty stuff: ad-aware, hijack-this and spybot s&d are afaik the best killers. for viruses i recommend kaspersky or sophos.
i also _strongly_ recommend firefox as standard-browser, it's so far superior to the IE and i even don't know all advantages. padding-bug anyone? that's the most ridiculous bug i have ever heard of (and i found it out the hard way

). the only disadvantage of firefox: it uses LOADS of memory :/
with aol 8 and following, you can create a direct connection to aol (dfü in german windows) without having to use the aol-software.

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 6:31 pm

Gambit.. all I can say is any website I've run myself and any website those around me have run look at their monthly stats and show around 90% IE users. Just who is do you suppose *really* sets the standards? Some little group who decided they would be responsible for telling people what to do? Or the company that makes the OS that about 90% of PC computers use? Who provide their own web browser with it to boot.

It's a simple matter of numbers.. he who has the might.. is right. (not saying it's fair.. or justified.. just that it is what it is) So it realy should be taken into concideration by the smaller are and less popular web browsers that the "proper" specs are not what everyone is designing to. it's to what it looks like in that browser that most people use.

moo

Post by **PaulH** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 6:36 pm

AOL is a pain in the arse at the best of times, so I think that changing to another ISP is the way forward. I see IE is not everyones favourite friend! The spyware technology moves on so quickly, it seems to be a constant battle. Better have a word with the rest of the family. It was only this week that I managed to explain to my Mom what a 'cookie' is!!! So you can guess the problems I have!

Many thanks for your comments!

PS Me? Look at porn? Hehe......

Tom Hatfield · Post by **Tom Hatfield** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 7:51 pm

I switched to Firefox a couple weeks ago and haven't looked back. Primary reason: selective cookie blocking. This was always a feature I wanted to see in IE6 and never did. The only thing I miss is the little image toolbar that shows up in IE6. I'd like to see an extension that duplicates this.

sucinum · Post by **sucinum** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 7:58 pm

i'm glad to have t-online in germany, they rock. it's "only" DSL, but it's a flatrate for a fair price and it's very reliable. it disconnects every 24h (you may reconnect at once), so you can't have a static ip, but if you really want to use it for a homeserver, there are enough ways to get around this problem.
whatever - won't help you...

i'd rather eat dirty things than using IE or AOL ever again. once you got real stuff - woohoo!

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 9:10 pm

isn't the total of IE users in general coming down to about 75 - 80% now?

Des · Post by **Des** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 10:00 pm

AOL uses constantly variable IP addressing that messes up the session state of some web sites. Why? BIIK.

Post by **Gambit37** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 3:03 am

all I can say is any website I've run myself and any website those around me have run look at their monthly stats and show around 90% IE users. Just who is do you suppose *really* sets the standards?

Irrelevant. While Microsoft may dictate the surfing predelicition of a clique because they know no better, it doesn't mean that their dictates are right or in the interest of the user. Yes, the % of surfers still use IE but that doesn't make it de facto -- it's simply because people know no better.

Sure, the larger % of the population probably don't give a shit about web standards or any other good reason for switching to a 'better' browser.. Indeed, on other forums I have had immense trouble convincing people why such things are important. But in the future web, browsers that do their own thing and don't adhere to accepted norms are only going to make things more difficult for a wider web audience. You can ignore the issue and stick with a bad browser or help move things forwward by only accepting a browser that does things right. It's exactly the same argument that applies to reasons for recycling your waste as opposed to simply dumping it in the bin.

Post by **PaulH** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 3:06 am

I hear there is a bill to make spyware illegal.

Florent · Post by **Florent** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 11:59 am

Yeah and there was one that made spam illegal too

Tom : you can selectively block cookies with IE. It's just very complicated... Go to Internet Options, Privacy menu, click Advanced, select "Ignore automatic cookie thingy" (not sure about the translation got the French version here) and select Deny in both columns. This blocks all cookies. Now you can enable exceptionnal cookies by going back to the Privacy tab and clicking the button in the websites area : just enter the URL of authorized websites. I still use IE for "IE optimized" (aka shitty) websites so I made this little configuration to avoid filling my hard drive with cookies.

Valderra · Post by **Valderra** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 6:42 pm

I use IE and don't want anything else.

Anyway, here is a site where you can download something that should "search and destroy" those nasty pestky things:

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html

Click at the left on "Download" and follow instructions.

And this site has an ad-aware tool, which you should use every day before closing down your computer to get rid of some other stuff that shouldn't be on the computer but has been placed there while you surfed the Internet. You can download the "free" version or buy the full one.

http://www.lavasoft.de/support/download/

Good luck.

Post by **Gambit37** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 8:48 pm

But you wouldn't need those tools if you didn't use IE!

JCG · Post by **JCG** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 8:48 pm

PaulH wrote: ....'Coolweb' seems invincible!

....'CoolwebSearch' you mean. CoolwebSearch is one of the worst nasties circulating on the Web. It's the first one you should erase, as it continuously brings more spyware on your PC.
The tool to remove it is CWShredder. You can download it from http://www.intermute.com/products/cwshredder.html
After that, you'll have to continue the cleaning with ad-adware and Spybot S&D

Spyware should never be there in the first place, and considering the crap circulating on the Internet, I don't want to touch IE if I can avoid it, it's the most poorly designed and unsafe piece of software. Sadly, I have to use it at work ( not my choice and not my responsibility).
At home, I never had any problem with spyware on my personal machine ( I check regularly with ad-aware). However IE and Outlook are banned, my browser is Firefox and my email client Eudora. I didn't take the pain to remove IE considering how deeply it has been rooted in Windows by Microsoft, but I have explicitly blocked IE by the firewall, along with a certain number of advertisement/crapware sites. I also erase the cookies regularly.
In case I want to go to a potentially unsafe site, I have an older, sacrificed machine on the network. It contains nothing valuable and it is ready to be reformatted and the system reloaded at the slightest problem.

On the Internet, only the paranoid survive.

sucinum · Post by **sucinum** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 9:19 pm

Valderra wrote:I use IE and don't want anything else.

usual problem :/
users of real browsers tend to be a bit to offensive when trying to convert IE-users which sends IE-users into defense and they stay at IE for defiance only.
a law against IE would help much more than a law against spyware.

Valderra · Post by **Valderra** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 12:34 am

sucinum wrote:
Valderra wrote:I use IE and don't want anything else.
usual problem :/
users of real browsers tend to be a bit to offensive when trying to convert IE-users which sends IE-users into defense and they stay at IE for defiance only.
a law against IE would help much more than a law against spyware.

Well, I think that everybody should be able to use what they want without getting lectures from others. (Not meaning you).

I have only ever used IE and never considered anything else. Don't know why... I guess it's because my laptops all come fully loaded with IE. LOL
Anyway, I have no problems with IE and feel comfortable with it. And I think it's up to each individual what he or she wants to use.
So rather than saying: ban it, why not just ignore the fact that others use it. After all, IE users don't tell non-IE users that their browsers should be against the law just because they think theirs is superior.

sucinum · Post by **sucinum** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 1:57 am

that is no "i use 1337 open source-stuff to make fun about the stupid rest" -thingie, just to make that clear. the ie blocks progress on the internet because of its inability to even show a simple stylesheet correctly and with its security issues the IE is responsible for a large amout of the spam which is sent around in the internet.

Post by **Gambit37** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 3:35 am

Valdera, of course you are entitled to use whatever browser you want. But as sucinum rightly points out, mass use of IE blocks progress because it's lousy at a whole bunch of stuff, as other posts in this thread have pointed out.

Most IE users are like yourself -- it came loaded with Windows so why use anything else? That's fine to a point -- but the reason people many people here are vocal against IE is because we know that there is a *choice* and the other browser options are generally superior. Many IE users simply don't know this. We just want you to know that there are better alternatives.

Valderra · Post by **Valderra** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 1:49 pm

Gambit37 wrote:Valdera, of course you are entitled to use whatever browser you want. But as sucinum rightly points out, mass use of IE blocks progress because it's lousy at a whole bunch of stuff, as other posts in this thread have pointed out.

Most IE users are like yourself -- it came loaded with Windows so why use anything else? That's fine to a point -- but the reason people many people here are vocal against IE is because we know that there is a *choice* and the other browser options are generally superior. Many IE users simply don't know this. We just want you to know that there are better alternatives.

I have to admit that I am pretty ignorant when it comes to other browsers because I have never bothered looking into them.
And sorry if I sounded a little harsh - didn't mean to. It's just that people often condemn things just because they think what they have is the one and only true thing. LOL

I have a couple of questions: For example - may sound like silly questions but hey.. I'm a newbie when it comes to browsers other than IE:

1) if I downloaded another browser, say, Firefox, would that affect any of my stuff I have on the HD or in my favourite folder?

2) Where can I get another browser from and what would I have to do in order to install it and use that one?

3) Is there a way to switch between two browsers? I am on message boards that are designed mainly for IE browsers and look awful in firefox or you can't even see the menu buttons at the top unless you have IE.
So, is there a way to switch the two when needed?

Post by **Gambit37** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 2:10 pm

Firefox, and every other browser that I know, will operate quite happily side-by-side with IE. You just install them into a standalone folder and "they work".

Firefox is lovely as it will automatically import all your IE favourites and convert them into it's own bookmarks. Your IE data is left intact and untouched.

Firefox install: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Post by **Gambit37** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 2:11 pm

You can also download plugins/extensions to add to it's funtionality, something that hardly works in IE. Have a look at this page for samples:

https://update.mozilla.org/extensions/

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 2:24 pm

one of the extentiosn is to add an option in the right click saying 'open as IE' so you could have the link to that forum in your toolbar, and you could right click and tell it to create an IE window to view it : )

Post by **Gambit37** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 3:06 pm

I am on message boards that are designed mainly for IE browsers

Out of interest, which boards? If you can let me know, it'll be time to dig out my "Designing for standards, not browsers" email that I regularly send to webmasters...

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Spyware etc

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