SpyWare Does Not Include Jennifer Garner
Posted on | January 7, 2005 at 10:42 pm | 2 Comments
Just spent several hours trying to rid my dad’s computer of AdWare and SpyWare. Installed three different detection/removal packages and I seem to have gotten most of it, though there is one bit of something (from “CDT Inc”) that keeps eluding everything and keeps popping up trying to install something. If anyone knows how to get rid of that, let me know. It’s very annoying and insistent.
I also installed Firefox on his PC, so hopefully he’ll use that instead of IE, and it will cut down on these intrusions. He’s obviously too trusting…
Very funny Worst Case Scenario comic in Westword, our alternative weekly, this week!
Latre.
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2 Responses to “SpyWare Does Not Include Jennifer Garner”
January 9th, 2005 @ 1:40 am
FWIW, there’s no short answer to the spyware issue that I know of right now, and I’ve been fairly actively researching it over the past year, if only ‘cos of problems my friends have suffered. Just today-ish, Microsoft has released a beta of their forthcoming antispyware app, and the review I read to my surprise actually was pretty positive when comparing it to the predominant free ones (like Spybot S&D, the usual front runner), except for the fact that Microsoft’s is going to be a pay-for subscribtion package eventually. But no single app has ever cleaned a thoroughly infected system, in the past year or so of the new nasty bugs.
The bottom line is there’s no one way to fix the problem (although there kinda is “one” way to prevent it! Firefox is a good start). A clean reinstall can actually be the least time-consuming way to go, sadly. A firewall (hardware, preferably – software if not) and a non-IE, non-Outlook setup is the longer-term answer. But ultimately, leaving your computer unplugged is the only way to guarantee a clean system. Good luck.
January 9th, 2005 @ 10:55 am
Microsoft’s AntiSpyware Beta was one of the three packages I installed on my dad’s PC (the other two being SpyBot S&D and AdAware). All three caught things that the other two didn’t, but none of them was able to wipe out that CDT thing and at least one other piece of AdWare that kept popping up a blank window. You’re right – there’s no way to fix it totally without a complete Windows reinstall, which is not something I want to attempt on someone else’s machine. And even if I do get rid of it all, I don’t think he practices safe-enough computing to prevent it from happening again. Hopefully he’ll be able to get by with using Firefox for everything, though he does have to get his mail through the MSN client, which I think is IE-based. At least he’s not using Outlook.