Ad Ware troubleshooting...

Ok I have Ad ware 6.0 here, and I am not 100% sure how this thing works. Now I scan, that's understood, now a window appears that states quarantine, and next. I should do what? Quarantine I assume, then what? Seriously I am not the smartest of individuals when it comes to this. Be gentle...

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Quarantine, I believe, refers to not deleting the entry, but merely putting it away. This way you can see if deleting it messes up your system. I've never had adaware delete anything the system needs, though, so this is rarely a problem in my eye.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Ok I have quarantined some stuff, should I leave it be or what? Advice?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I think the idea is to run your system. Restart it, piddle around with this and that, etc... If everything seems to be running cool, then go ahead and delete it.

I generally just delete it right off the bat.

 

Most of the files quaratined will be cookies. Other files may be more serious spyware, and deleting them may disable the software they were bundled with. This typically includes P2P programs, video/MP3 players, and many other types of "free" software.

I haven't had this problem yet, but I won't just download and install any old thing that comes along.

 

What is it that was quarantined?

 

I have good news, I got rid of that generic homepage, someone else here on sci had the same problem. All thanks to Adware, but I still have that "readme acid skip" tool bar which I don't want, how do I get rid of that?

 

Congrats on getting the trojan removed. I've never heard of the readme acid skip toolbar. Did a google search, and the only hit that came up was this forum. The post in the other adware thread you made. Where did you get it?

You could try spybot, as I've heard that it will take care of things that adaware can't sometimes.

edit: somehow I doubt it though, due to lack of information on google.

 

I've had some luck with going through the add/remove programs thing and removing stuff which looked like adware (I wouldn't suggest this unless you know what you're doing since removing some stuff can make programs not work, and etc). This probably isn't the most effective method, but it can be of some help sometimes. I would try spybot though, and if that doesn't work...

You could go into msconfig (start->run->msconfig) (again with the know what you're doing :/ ) and look at the startup items and uncheck anything that looks like it could be adware...generally disabling startup items doesn't break stuff (but don't mess around with stuff in the other tabs) in my experience. If all else fails, you could reformat! or load up a restore point that existed before you had all the malware (for help on restore points search the windows help, I think that should be enough information to do those, but be aware that you will lose any software you've installed after that restore point (not sure about data, I'd check into that)).

Hope this helps.

 

there is another program called "spybot search and destroy" which is similar to adaware but can be used in conjunction for maximum effectiveness. are you using the latest adaware config file?

start using firefox as your browser =)

 

I've never heard of the readme acid skip toolbar.

Because it seems that it's a ploy, my friend has the same thing but it's called something else. It seems to be the same program with many names. I can describe because it seems attachments cannot be put on sci anymore. It's a blue bar underneath my URL, and it has "search", and other erronous words. Also thank you for looking on Google, thanks.

You could try spybot, as I've heard that it will take care of things that adaware can't sometimes.

I have spybot, and adware and it doesn't seem to get rid of this.

I wouldn't suggest this unless you know what you're doing

Which I don't...

firefox as your browser

Why is it better? How so?

Also what's Cdilla?

 

One other thing you could use is Hijackthis! although I couldn't say how useful it is in your situation.

 

A thousand thank you's, I got rid of it.

 

I figured you'd already done a google search, but when I hear about something I've never heard of, I generally like to look around to see what I can find. Actually, any knowledge I have of virii and trojan horses etc... is all hearsay. I've never had one myself. Good internet practice.

I was going to suggest Hijackthis too, I did suggest it in another thread or two. I feel like I have been repeating myself so I didn't mention it this time.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Firefox won't really help you when it comes to hijacks and trojans and the like, but it does keep the cookies at bay. I use the full version of Mozilla myself. I used to use Firefox, but it lacks some settings that the full version of Mozilla has. The main thing I like about it is tabbed browsing. No more million windows open at the same time. It also blocks popups. Whenever I go onto the net with IE, I am always amazed at the amount of popups. I forgot how horrible it used to be before the switch. On the downside, some sites don't work right with Mozilla. I'm not sure why. I've heard that it's because Microsoft uses a nonstandard html spec. And web designers design for IE instead of true HTML.

edit: there should probably be a stickied thread about ways to deal with spyware and the like. My main weapons are adaware and spybot. Hijackthis has had good results, but I've never used it personally.