Popping Culture

I had the same problem about two weeks ago. McAfee has an Anti-Spyware program that they allowed me a 5-day free trial. I ran the program, it removed the Pop-ups (Spyware) and after it expired, it kept them off. I have McAfee as my main anti-virus program, but I don't know if that is why I got the 5-day trial. No problems since, though.

Awwww! We can all share in the joys and pains of computer ownership. Isn't that lovely? ;)Seriously.... Had the same problem here back awhile ago! Pesky little buggers that is for sure...

And Dan? This is YOUR site... If we didn't want to listen/hear what you have to say... We wouldn't.... Or at least that is case for most of us anyways.... We could get up and walk out but that would just be plain rude and would disturb those around us... {There's a preacher joke in there somewhere}

Dan:

I had massive spyware problems and tried all kinds of stuff. The one that's worked best is Spyware Doctor. Well worth the $30. The other thing that I recommend is Webroot Spysweeper, which will not only clean up but will stay on your system and prevent home page and search engine hijackings. Spysweeper is free (well, they keep asking me to register for the "full" version but what I have now seems to work just fine). Good luck.

People do respond to these pop-ups. I and my partners in Nigeria have made several million. In fact, I just got an email from them asking for my personal account information with passwords so they can deposit all of my money! Who's laughing now?

You might already know about this stuff and I don't know if it will actually fix the problem at hand, but here goes.

First of all, you might want to give Microsoft's new anti-spyware tool a quick whirl. It's free for the moment and, amazingly, works quite well. For the time being, at least, it finds more stuff than both Ad Aware and Spybot. You can get it here.

For virus protection, I've had luck with Avast. It's free for personal use. I would assume you already have an antivirus program installed, but if not then you can get it here.

You also might want to consider using Firefox if you don't and look into the possibility of switching your email over to Thunderbird if you're using Outlook. Using those over IE and Outlook will certainly make you more secure. Frankly, I'd argue that Firefox is just a much better browser anyway and switching over is pretty easy.

I second the spysweeper reccomendation. Gets shit off - like browser hijackers - and keeps shit off.

Screen actually flickers with all the ads now.

I'm sure we'll look back on this and laugh at my funeral.

If I remember correctly, Joel dropped by the garage one day and told me about Firefox. I truly could hug the man. I'm running Macafee anti-virus and did a Adaware sweep and the two computers I use seem to be behaving better than ever now that I use Firefox. Just say NO to IE. I think I'll try the Microsoft spy tool as well since Joel is a computer god in my mind.

PS: In regards to your question about anybody buying stuff from a pop-up, I read this the other day.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/02/03/junk.email.ap/index.html

Time wasted deleting junk e-mail costs American businesses nearly $22 billion a year, according to a new study from the University of Maryland.
...
The study also found that 14 percent of spam recipients actually read messages to see what they say, and 4 percent of the recipients have bought something advertised through spam within the past year.

If 4 percent of computer users buy stuff from spam, I'd say the numbers are probably about the same for pop-ups. Aye Carumba! Somebody take the keyboards and mice away from that 4%!

Hey Ralph: ROTFLOL in regards to that e-mail addy! NOW GET BACK TO WORK AT THE GARAGE or the office manager will dock you... ;)

Hey Joel: On behalf of myself and the others.. We thank you...

Ralph,

I think that fueling the pop-up industry by actually BUYING something offered in a pop-up ad should be considered justifiable homicide.

Ralph, I always appreciate it when someone calls me a god.

Anyone interested in bandwidth issues? My current college has people warning all resident students to either get spyware blockers or be disconnected -- spam accounted for a whopping 60% of the network!

As far as virus protection, I prefer PREVX. Detects EVERYTHING that tries to modify your computer, including stuff that's supposed to be there, then lets you decide whether to allow it.

I guess the ultimate perversion of common sense is buying a pop-up blocker from someone selling them via pop-up advertisements.

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