Our PC is overrun with spyware!

[Nxs]

You forgot msconfig

[Choupolo]

Our home PC (Win98, 800MHz) is in a bad way. My family click on everything without looking and now it has annoying popups, the browser homepage automatically defaults to a random search engine even if yu try to change it back, there are icons for shopping and casinos on the desktop that yu cant delete or move or right click on, and there are random toolbars on the browser for yet more casinos. Theres no unwanted pr0n yet tho thank god. But yu cant browse the net without having to alt-f4 for a few minutes.

Ive tried 'everything' i know. I cant find any extra progs in control panel, and ctrl+alt+del shows many progs all named after essential processes so i dont know which to end. Up to date Adaware and spybot clean it up a little (even multiple cleans until it comes up with zero bugs), but then all the problems return straight after a restart. Google toolbar hasnt helped. We have an up to date albeit old version of norton antivirus which cant come up with anything.

Short of buying new antivirus software for £50 or formatting, thought I might try yu guys for any other suggestions...? Is this a virus or spyware?

Thanks :bucky!: :thumbup:

[Nxs]

Might wanna try Hijack this and CWShredder. They seem to work well. And if you dont already, unjack from the internet while you are cleaning that crap off

[TheTeaPot]

another is ad-aware by lavasoft, it works pretty well. its 100% free and has full update support.

[Nxs]

He has ran that already Hijack this is a little advanced but still free as it CWShedder and that one should take care of the homepage problem

[LoneStrider]

hijackthis - needs some noob-lessons to understand first. you are able to delete programs you Don't want to delete, so it might be smart if you learn the prog a bit. (tho the most accurate toolbar & searchpage cleaner there is.) (oh and if you post you Hijackthis log in here, i can tell which ones to delete/fix or not)

ad aware. - great software, deletes everything that shouldn't be on ur pc.

Spybot S&D. - good program, for unwanted toolbars and plugins.

defrag. - helps alot, places back all the fragmented files, gving your computer some air to breathe after its finished (meaning it runs faster)

clean up ur hd yourself. - speaks for itself.

safe mode. - restarting in safemode only runs the NEEDED proccesses to keep yourr pc going. this helps for example deleting files that aren;t deletable in normal mode, because they are in the system run-tray.

registry cleanup - don't know a valid program for this one, but it might help to eradicate the problems completely.



some programs i conjured up on cleaning ur pc. it takes a full 50% (or more in worse cases!) increase in latency/performance when everything has been run/fixed/deleted.
be careful with what you delete tho. it is rarely it happens, but you might delete critical system info off your rig. but never happened to me if you know what your doing.

good luck :thumbup:

[Choupolo]

Thanks everyone i'll definitely try Hijackthis and CWShredder, and post about the hijackthis log as its new to me. Ill give safe mode a go as well for those desktop icons, i didnt try that.

Sry, I might not have access to our home machine for a couple of weeks, so I cant give you any feedback straight away, but ill post here again when i do.

Much appreciated, thanks very much!!

[Xpendable]

May I also advise AdawareSE

[Ranzy]

Just run Hitman Pro and you don't need to install all those different tools...
It's a tool that unites all of the best anti spyware tools and runs them all at once, it runs about half an hour and removes every single bit of spyware on your pc. It's made by some Dutch guy.

Yeah, Hitman Pro is cool :thumbup: