September 12, 2004
Call this one, "Just click NO."
First of all there's a great summary of the problem in the Acrobat file linked below. This document should be required reading for anyone offering PC help these days.
(If your browser didn't ask permission to open the .PDF in the link above, your browser isn't secure. Don't feel bad, most of your browsers won't be asking.)
I posted this somewhere this morning: You need to check for spyware/adware.
Get Ad-Aware SE, Spybot Search
and Destroy, and HijackThis. Install,
update, and scan with these.
Great site: http://www.netrn.net/spywareblog/
And got this reply:
I wondered why you recommended one of the above --
To which, I respond...
These people are not ethical and they do not care what happens to their victims anymore than the script kiddies or former eastern block hackers do when they write viruses. So when dealing with spyware, I try to recommend tangential, informative sites instead of direct links to the software tools. I do this for a number of reasons:
1 - People need to understand the problem before dealing with it.
2 - Spyware infestations often block, or intercept and re-direct, attempts to reach and download the most effective and common tools. Therefore, you need to understand the problem before dealing with it.
3 - Spyware/Adware malwares are constantly changing and hard to pin down. Therefore, you need to understand the problem before dealing with it.
Go, read, get educated, understand and then heal thyself.
HijackThis is listed last because it is a last resort. It is not recommended for use by casual PC users, but it is necessary when you have something new. When that happens, HijackThis can help you disable the pest and restore PC functionality. Then you can come back later with more information and either hack the registry to remove it, or remove it using one of the now-updated aforementioned software tools.
Most call-center support Techs, reading scripts don't understand this problem very well yet, but they're learning... slowly.
(How stupid are the marketing droids? Dell, HP, Logitech, M$ and many, many other large companies still bundle adware with their new products. Stupid? Yes. When did it become OK to annoy customers? And how many degrees does it take before you realize its a bad thing? The answer is ZERO as in 0. There is nothing common about common sense.)
The simplest suggestion is: When in doubt, just click "NO."
