I finally got my computer back to working again, the right way. A couple of days ago I read some forign news sites looking at what the ferigners had to say about Bush....

One of them slipped me a mickey on my computer. It is called Cool Web Search, but it does not say it. All of a sudden you have a search screen that imposes itself at boot up. It killed my Adaware program and the virus checker would not find it.

I played with it for a couple of days, could not realisticly use the computer for normal use and did not want to pass it on. Firewall kept it from transmitting, it tried a few times.

I downloaded several ad ware programs and finally hit on xoft spy. It turned up 36 files on the computer that were dangerous. I tried to physically remove them, even in DOS, but a couple were locked to access. I am usually good at getting rid of this stuff. Finally bit the bullet and paid for the program to remove them. Computer is great now, works well. It was worth the money in time alone.

If you get a search screen on the computer that you do not want, don't reboot, get rid of it first with adaware or spybot. Once rebooting you can't load them and it will trash the program files.

Doing some research they are coming from the Al Jesera (spelling) net. Thanks Ben Laden....

 

I got hit HARD recently too..........bought a new computer - have not yet been able to fix the old one without reformatting. At least you could get rid of it.

 

A good thing might be to switch to Mozilla or Firefox instead of Internet Explorer.

Neither of them are perfect but Mozilla is pretty on top of their stuff.

Also when it says "Trust content from....." do not say YES unless it's a website you really do know and trust.

If you get any stupid toolbar searches installed, go to Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove programs and uninstall it.

I run AdAware on my computer about once a week too.

 

AdAware will not get all of it. The one I had even trashed the AdAware. For a clean computer try XoftSpy. Firewall does not stop it either.

 

Another thing you can do if your using IE is go into Tools > Internet Options > Advanced and uncheck the "Enable Install on Demand" settings


Tony

 

Holy smokes, I'm not alone with this problem I see. I got hijacked two weeks ago and it cost us $100.

 

Thanks Tony

 

Hmmm- not wanting to jinx it, but I've been running Linux since 99 to do my web and office stuff and since then no virus, spyware, adware .... and only rebooting when I change the hardware

But I'm really glad that my customers run Windows (R) - Got to make a living

AlpineRAM

 

FYI, there is a free utility that works great for removing these nasty pieces of CoolWebSearch Spyware. It is free and is called CWShredder. You can download it from http://www.intermute.com/spysubtract..._download.html

 

You can also try a prgram called " HiJackthis"..its afree download and got rid of Coolsearch and several others I had that Adaware couldnt touch.

 

i just got rid of cool web search (CWS) it was easy. i went to favorites and clicked on a web site and it let me go there without being redirected then i was able to use my yahoo anti spy to get rid of it along with gator and a couple trojan horses.

 

spy killer is pretty godd too i've been told it's the best
www.spykiller.com

 

spy killer has cool web search as #1 spyware it says its identity theft. gator and a few others are on there to check it out