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I have AdAware SE,as well as several Computer Associates products.
At the end of every day before I shut down, I run the AdAware to remove all the objects, then MS Disk Clean up, finally a Defrag.
Some might consider this a bit over the top. I do this because next time I log in I should have a clean computer with no tracking objects. Also this is a practice I was advised to do by the local computer club.

I usually have 2-4 critical and 5-7 Negligible every day except when I spend some time on chat then it often doubles and more. Today Mon 30th May I had a total of 19 and some times it is a lot higher.
Google will also send the total higher.

Is any one else noticing this?

Keith

Last edited by keithgh at 30-May-2005 18:47

Last edited by keithgh at 30-May-2005 18:53

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
VOTE NOW VOTE NOW

I am running Firefox with all cookies set to block and ask, and the amount of objects that Spybot and AdAware pick up now is minimal, maybe 3 a month?

Defragging every day is a bit over the top IMO unless you are removing or installing large chunks of data. I do it once every 4 weeks and even then, it tells me that I really don't need to (although I never believe anything MS tells me, they have foobah woobah'd to me before )

The BF keeps telling me to get a specialised defragging program and to run it in Safe Mode where there is less interference from background operations. I have been too lazy to comply.

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

got a firewall keith?

and defragging every night is Überoverkill mate...

Like calla, I got Firefox set to block and ask for every cookie. I clear my cookies, cache, and stored passwords every time I get off the net (most adware and spyware is in the form of cookies...so if ya don't have any cookies that you don't want, you don't have much spyware). I also have ActiveX controls OFF (default in Firefox). But most importantly, I watch where I go on the net...if a site doesn't look safe, I skip it

I did make one mistake when I went to a serial code craking site and I got one piece of junk...I still haven't been able to find a scanner that can get rid of it, or find it in regedit...

Other than that, I haven't had a problem with adware, spyware, viruses, etc in 'bout 9 months... I've had a grand total of 2 bits of adware... no spyware, no viruses... just a little adware...

And yes, defragging every night is overkill. I haven't defragged in nearly a year and a half...then again, I reformat every 6 months or so, and I install stuff and leave it there...I don't really delete anything other than cookies and cache and stuff...that all goes on the end of the drive anyway, so it doesn't really matter

BTW, MS Scandisk doesn't do anything but check the hard drive for physical damage (bad sectors due to dust, cracks, etc)...you don't really need to run Scandisk more than once a month or so unless yer takin' it apart and putting LED's and windows in it or something

EDIT-You people are getting me paraniod again I now got a good software firewall on my system


Last edited by PoisonWaffle at 30-May-2005 15:56

I did make one mistake when I went to a serial code craking site and I got one piece of junk...I still haven't been able to find a scanner that can get rid of it, or find it in regedit...

rrrrrrreformat!!!!

I never run scandisk after modding. If there is a problem, you'll find it soon enough anyway, and scandisk tends to make dying drives fall over anyway. I'd rather get it into the freezer and get my data off when i hear the click of death.

Defragging every day = definitely a bad idea, stresses the drives, stresses Windows, can cause heating issues in under-ventilated cases (dont believe me? Ask me nicely and I'll tell you the story of the defrag and the 120C system temp!!)



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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

Thank you all for the Defrag info I will tone it down (still learning)
I do have a Firewall it is a package of three products from Computer Associates. I get free phone service for my Anti Virus and help with the other two.

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
VOTE NOW VOTE NOW

Aye, TC...I'm planning a reformat as soon as I can get ahold of another WinXP disk

GET SPYSWEEPER ITS ALWAYS ON AND STOPS ALL TRACKING BEFOR IT GET A CHANCE TO FIX ITSELF TO YOUR REGISTRY YOU NEVER NEED TO RUN THE PROGRAM IT RUNS ITSELF ITS LIKE ADAWARE (WHICH I ALSO HAVE) BUT AGAIN RUNS ALL THE TIME!! IT ALSO TELLS YOU ABOUT NEW PROGRAMS THAT ARE TRYING TO START UP WHEN WINDOWS RESTARTS

E.G. YOUR SURFING THE NEXT AND DOWNLOADING SOMETHING TOTALY NORMAL (U THINK) ITS A .ZIP FILE HIDDEN IN THE IS A INTERNET DIALER LIKE ERM... NET.DOMAIN (I USED TO ALWAYS GET IT) WHEN IT TRYS TO DO A REGEDIT SPY SWEEPER WILL POP ON AND TELL YOU YOU CAN BLOCK AND REMOVE IT FROM THE OPTIONS.

IF YOU ARE NOT AWARE OF DIALERS ON UR PC WEN IT STARTS UP IT WILL TAKE AGES FOR YOU TO GET A PAGE ON YOUR BROWSER AS IT IS TRYING TO CONNECT TO THESE TROJAN DIALERS THAT HAVE CUNNINGLY HIDDEN THEMSELF ON UR PC!!!!

DON'T BE A VICTIM

GOOD LUCK WITH IT

OOOOOOPS JUST NOTICED HOW OLD THIS THREAD IS.........

........ITS LIKE TALKING TO MYSELF

the thread is only a few days old.

ANyways, i would suggest NOT to defrag at the end of every day. Defragging puts ALOT of strain on your HDD, which in turn causes premature failure.

Oscar, Spysweeper's good, but the free version is quite limited. I personally hate the fact that it runs all the time...it wastes my precious and expensive memory (recently paid $70 for another 512mb of PC3200 RAM). I'm not on the net all of the time anyway, and I use my methods listed above...they don't consume as many resources...

It is a great product tho...I just don't want it running all of the time, nor do I want to waste $30 on it...

My recommendations:

[1] Defrag once every 28 days if the PC is subject to average use. Heavy music downloaders who then burn CDs and delete large chunks from the hard drive should consider once every 14 days, but no more.

[2] Get a deccent firewall. ZoneAlarm is pretty good in my experience.

[3] Get Ad-Aware.

[4] Get JavaCool's SpywareBlaster. This fixes some vulnerabilities in Internet Explore (but not all) and contains a nice big database of parasites, trojans and other unwanted nasties for you to browse at leisure, and breathe a sig of relief that they're not on your system.

[5] Get an updated Hosts file that blocks 90% of the nasties at source. If your computer can't contact the source websites to begin with because the Hosts file locks them out, that's most of the trouble sorted at source. Likewise, a good Hosts file stops several nasties from contacting home unless they use direct IP addresses. Then your firewall should stop them.

Oh, and a special note. There's an advertising parasite out there called TSADBOT. Which is very difficult to remove if you get it. With this one, prevention is better than cure. See www.cexx.org for more info on this beast (including the ping-pong of E-Mails resulting from one infestation). This nasty piece of work disguises itself as a Windows Service so that it hides from the CTRL-ALT-DEL task manager, preventing you from killing it. Which means that you can't delete the executable while it's running (because it opens its own executable as an exclusively locked file to stop this). Also, the techniques used for dropping this on your system are tantamount to criminal: it's embedded in some installers, which install it behind your back BEFORE you even decide whether or not to click on "Yes" or "No", and if you click on "No" to refuse installation of infected software, remains on your system hogging memory, CPU cycles and net bandwidth. If it can't call home because you've used your firewall to block its outgoing traffic, it launches a denial of service attack locking up your machine by trying to connect to the net 15 times a second. Once it's on, it spams your machine with unwanted ads even when your browser isn't active, and you wonder where they're coming from. Nasty piece of work. Nuke it and all files associated with it on sight. Again, full instructions for destruction of this vermin are available at www.cexx.org.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

screw all that

{1} get common sense.

speaking of common sense, I got this virus email through today

"Turn on your TV. Osama Bin Laden has been captured. While CNN has no pictures at this point of time, the military channel (PPV) released some pictures. I managed to capture a couple of these pictures off my TV. Ive attached a slideshow containing all the pictures I managed to capture. I apologize for the low quality, its the best I could do at this point of time. Hopefully CNN will have pictures and a video soon. God bless the USA! Elmo Adkins"

with Pictures.zip as an attachment

was the most entertaining virus email I've had for quite a while!

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

send me it use my msn messanger account as the e-mail address

i will open it on my "crash box" and see what it does

I just deleted it.

However, at least one news agency claims that the trojan installed via this E-Mail implements a denial-of-service attack on your machine, followed by the appearance of a message to send money to a given offshore account in exchange for the code to unlock your machine. In other words, it's extortionware. At least one large corporate institution has reported problems following the opening of this attachment by one (extremely stupid) employee.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002