I think you may be confusing me with some of the previous posters. I never suggested reformatting as a solution to a virus or similar problem. I have reformatted a hard drive, and I would have to have one very large reason for doing that again. But with regard to the second part of your post I quoted above, I'm not sure what removing the registry keys means(where are they found?), but I was concerned that what I was doing was only giving the appearance of removing these processes, but not necessarily truly eliminating them from the cpu. But after several day, and a half-dozen reboots, I see no sign of them. Am I on the right track here, or is there more to it than what I've done? Alan
No , I was only referring to your attempt to handle the problem intelligently, I didn't think you were going to to anything rash like reformatting. Now, if you still don't see the processes that were causing the problem, then they are likely gone. If you read through the anti-virus material , you should see references to deleting certain keys that the hijakker uses to install itself. That effectively removes them from the system. It's possible one of the programs you used did that for you.
Appreciate your response, MRWSM. I was looking at Cnet user reviews for both ad-aware and spybot s&d, and what got me concerned is people saying that unless one is very PC-savvy, chances are that one could screw up something (like delete the wrong files). I'm a Mac user and got a PC only because I wanted to use Qcharts and IB, and didn't want to emulate the PC on the Mac. Between ad-aware and spybot, which is better for spyware? I'm not too concerned about pop up ads.
To get an answer to your question I frequently run both programs, one right after the other, sometimes running AdAware first, sometimes running Spybot first, to see if one will find things the other did not. I have seen AdAware catch some things after running Spybot that Spybot missed, but I have yet to see Spybot catch something that AdAware missed. But they are both continuously evolving, and I run them both routinely.
For the not-too-PC-literate (most dangerous, such as myself), can someone explain how a pop-up is generated? Is it by a process on my PC or is it by one on the website I visit? I suspect that both could be the case. For instance, whenever I visit espn.com's tennis site, I will see one pop-up about Expedia.com--always the same ad. That is benign--someone has to pay espn.com's bills. But if it is generated by a process on my PC, then it is really annoying and could be dangerous--that is what I am concerned about. I would like to hunt out these hidden processes and eliminate them. But I don't know how. If someone can throw some light on this, I appreciate it. I run ad-aware and spybot periodically too and delete those cookies and trackers, but I would like to run as few programs on my PC as possible. I will resort to running a pop-up blocker software when I have too. Thanks in advance for any input. tc
Also, beware of the major software companies. I find spyware every time I update microsoft. And, I found a version of Qharts with pcAnywhere attached...now that's spyware! It's also a good idea to not accept html email, only text. Html pages that have java applets can be dangerous. As well as McAfee & Norton, I use PestPatrol & SpySweeper. Have found that no one program will find all bugs.
I understand from talking to Norton Tech support that the 2004 version is programmed to go onto only one computer and only up to 5 times. Will be a big annoyance IMHO.
EBO, Glad you did. When these outfits get so self important it's time for us to go elsewhere or....fool them.