I was wondering if any one could suggest a good pop up blocker or a good firewall?

When I close my I. E. I get a gajillion pop up windows, and I cannot seem to find the exe. file that causes this. Any one have any suggestions on where to find these types of files?

This really sucks as I know that when I log off FTE, I will have to close at least 15 pop-ups!

Thanks in advance!

 

try a google search for adware 6.0 and spybot these have helped me some and its free software.

 

here is what i do. i use the free program called ZONEALARM. it's a firewall but i believe it does some popup blocking. also, download a program called
SPYBOT-SEARCH AND DESTROY. this will search your hard drive for spyware and allow you to delete them. spyware are hidden programs the "watch" you and tell the originator what you do and look at. this is for sending you ads they think you'll like. both of these can be found at downloads.com

 

Use a good browser like Opera or Mozilla.

 

My memory is failing me with this one. I used to get those phantom pop ups that said windows messenger. Found a website that told exactly what files to go to and what boxes to check and uncheck. That cured that problem. the site wasn't that hard to find either. I just don't remember more. Had the link stored in Favs for a while but it's not there anymore.

AOL's pop up blocker takes care of the rest.

i've read good things about Mozilla in other places. Seems i also read something about if a person gets away from the MSN stuff one then is virtually immune to viruses. I'm intutiting that all viruses use windows to work? or MS products.

 

Most viruses use MS products. There have been a few that used other products but they did not spread Most of the people that use the better browsers and non MS products keep their systems well protected. Opera is easier to install and configure than Mozilla.

Use an email client like Eudora and get away from that MS outlook product also.

 

We too were having problems with popups about 2 months ago.....come to find out our (VERY popular) antivirus had let a trojen through......my wife had to reinstall windows and all software, HAD to go with a different virus protection and bam found the trojen and eliminated it.
Just my 2 cents worth

try finding a free online virus scan (panda is a good one) and check it may help

 

Mcafee is on ours, firewall protection. Also Webroot's Spysweeper is great for eliminating spyware/adware.

 

http://toolbar.google.com/ has an excellent popup blocker...

right now mine say 186 blocked... once loaded it's in the background and you never fool with it...

and it's free !

 

Panicware's pop-up stopper works well too. Another free one. And it works with all the browsers I have tried....

Jim

 

First of all. Get a router with a built-in firewall (I love my D-Link, my old Linksys imploded on itself about a year ago...). Configure port forwarding on that so port 80 and 8080 are NOT open to the outside. (optional, really, even if you don't do that, you probably won't have any problems. I certainly haven't. I've never had a virus. )

Second, update your virus scanner's definitions, then unplug your internet connection and run the scan.

Third, plug your connection in and run spybot.

Finally, go to Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs and remove everything you haven't heard of (or post it here if you're not sure if you should remove it or not). Get rid of anything that says: Gator, 180, Ad, Lycos, or Aikikai (haven't seen that one too much, but that's one of the top ad agencies online...).
Then go into C:\Program Files\ and look for folders that look suspicious (you don't know what they are). Rename the folders, reboot, and if nothing happened to your system, delete them. If the system doesn't start correctly, change some of them back to the original name and reboot again... ect ect. until you've deleted all of the senseless junk that other programs installed on your computer.

Then go to start->run type in "msconfig*****" without the quotes, and hit enter (if you have windows 2000, go to http://www.techadvice.com/win2000/m/msconfig_w2k.htm )
Then disable all of the programs you don't want to start running when your system boots (you'll find there are MANY more programs than you thought were running).

Finally, secure windows itself (as much as humanly possible, that is).
http://labmice.techtarget.com/articl...ingwin2000.htm has good information
http://www.uksecurityonline.com/husd...wsxp/wxpp2.php too.
If you need more information about something, ask, or google it.

PS. As far as toolbars go, be weary. Google has a decent reputation, but most of those toolbar creators don't. Most toolbars will give you more ads than any website.
Also, the google toolbar won't stay functional for very long, ad agencies have figured out how to get around it.
Source: CNET

 

Thanks for all the replys!

Unfortunately for me I have pretty much tried all the above suggestions...minus formating my labtop. I have gave some of the various free spyware tools a try....but I end up with the same amount of pop-ups, just different ones.

I think that I have have a trojan virus, and I'll try a different virus scan when I get home later.

 

I have found that you need a layered approach.

First get Spybot Search and Destroy. It will find the spyware already on your computer and it will prevent SOME new ones from installing. You will be amazed at the volume of spyware your computer almost certainly has already.

Then Get Spyblaster. It will watch for new spyware as it comes in and it also allows you to set some system settings to prevent your home page, search page etc from being changed. This one will get rid of the ones Spybot misses.

Then get Popup Manager. This one prevents new webpages from being spawned from the page you just visited. I would say it blocks about 95% of the attempts. What I love is that it has a little green light at the corner. When there is an attempt to open a popup the light turns red and you may see a flash on the screen and then the popup is gone. Gives me satisfaction to see the flash of a killed popup.

Finally, you should install a firewall. I use Zonelabs, it prevents applications that may be sneaking around from trying to access your computer(to install evil) and it prevents spyware that snuck by the other protections from accessing the web. This tool requires a bit of learning since the free version comes pretty much blank and asks you permission for everything. As you learn, you will be able to set up automatic access for known safe programs. the paid version already has the safe sites setup. If you are not computer savy get the paid version.

All the above are free. Since I installed these, my popups have dropped almost to the point of just a few a day. Used to be a handful every few minutes. Also my homepage and search page have not been changed to "webewildwomen.com" since then. And I no longer get strange application icons popping up on my desktop. It used to take my PC maybe 10 minutes to boot and log in on DSL, now it takes maybe a minute. And my system doesn't crash every 30 minutes like it used to when all the spyware was fighting for resources.

My kids visit a lot of game pages and they are full of spyware and popups and trojans. Now they no longer get "ubscrewed.com" popups anymore, whew, that was fun to explain to the wife.

And as always run a virus checker and keep the signatures current.

Good Luck, I hate spyware.

Jim Henderson

 

There has been a lot of great advice here so far! I will add one little thing from recent experience. One of the nastiest bits of spyware/internet page hijacker software I have seen in a long time is called VX2. If you have any version of the VX2 spyware on your system, it cannot be removed unless you boot the computer up into safe mode and then run a spyware removal tool from within safe mode. Adaware (already mentioned) can detect it, but I had to use a program called VX2 Finder (do a google search and you will find it) to totally eradicate it from the machine. Again, both adaware and VX2 Finder had to be run in safe mode to totally delete all the registry entries and keep the machine from being re-infected. The method for booting into safemode varies from operating system to operating system, but as a general rule you will hit a function key right after bootup (the computer should flash a quick message as to which key you need to hit), while the machine is first coming on. In Windows 2000 you hit the F8 key, then you choose 'boot into safe mode' from the menu.

 

I use Netscape 7.1 (much better than previous versions, almost no crashes) and Eudora 6.0. Now then, what's a pop-up? IE sucks at blocking them, NS7.1 can totally disallow them integrally. Eudora doesn't make your mailing list available for distribution of viruses/worms like MS LookOut (errrr...Outlook) does. Adaware and Spybot S&D are pretty much the standard for elimination of spy/mal-ware. They overlap quite a bit, but each catches some things the other doesn't. Make sure you get "Adaware", and not some other spelling of it, because those are often either not free, or mal-ware themselves.

Jason