Adware :(
 

Arg!
I have been infested with adware! Last time this happened, it messed up my computer rather badly, and I had to get it repaired...for $200! How can I stop it? Anyone have any advice on how to fight the awfulness that is adware? I don't want to spend another $200!

Lavasoft's Ad-Aware is excellent. Lavasoft.com I believe.

Spybot Search & Destroy is also good to have. And there's a nifty little program called EasyCleaner which I recommend anyway, which does about half a dozen very useful things.

What's adware? :?:

I had this problem. I got SpySweeper, SpyBot S & D and adware, plus you need a firewall, I use Sygate. I haven't had this problem again since!

I have and reccomend these three excellent and free programs:

Spybot Search & Destroy 2.0
This scans and eliminates many spyware + adaware programs

Ad-aware 6.0
This also scans and eliminates many spyware + adaware programs, they have both free and non-free versions, I find the free version just fine.

Spywareblaster
This sets up memory-resident blocks to prevent much spyware from ever being installed in the first place.

Also - Don't forget to check for updates on all 3 programs once you download and run them and also periodcally from then.

If you want, I also reccomend the free Google Toolbar to block pop-up ads and it has some other nifty search features.

For a firewall, I have one built-in with my router connected to my fiber-optic interenet line, so I can't reccomend any software firewall.

Free firewalls include Zonealarm, as well.

Thanks! One of the programs quarantined 'em all, and that seems to be working for now. :D

Oi, I remember when my computer got infested, took me months before I finaly got every bit of it off. That's what you get when you try to download cracked software. ;)

I also recommend Ad-Aware; I've been running it for a couple years and I have no problems. A few words of caution, however: if you use Kazaa, you may have to reinstall it after cleaning your drive since it has built-in spyware. (Kazaa Lite, however, does not, and is better anyways.) Secondly, a friend of mine that I got to install Ad-Aware has found that when he runs it Ad-Aware tries to delete a file called mozz.dll that Mozilla uses. You just have to watch out for that sort of thing, and it doesn't take long to be able to recognize the files that you shouldn't delete when you run it. (With Ad-Aware, you can make a backup of the files first, so if you wipe something essential it's not gone -- this is a good idea for the first few times running a scan.)

That's a good idea with EasyCleaner too - it keeps copies of all the reg entries that it removes, so if it goes wonky you can restore them.

eMule, I've found, is much better than Kazaa. And BitTorrent is even better (though it won't work on my comp right now for some reason).