Stunning amounts of spyware.

[FatSlob]

Ad-Aware found nearly 500 dataminers and shit like that on this computer. It had never been scanned before. It is now running much faster.

[Placebo]

1. This is why I love having a Mac!

Nooooooooo spyware problems for meeeeeeee and my brethren. :P :bounce:

[ranosgol]

8. Me too. one of the few the proud the Mac user !

[shawcomm]

2. Augh.

There's one that you have to do a regular uninstall on and it first takes you to a website complaining about why you're uninstalling it. Then it makes you answer some loaded questions before it will continue the uninstall.

I usually pick the 'other' option on each set and send them a variety of curses.

Adware is a scourge. So is Microsoft.

[skygazer]

3. I recently installed Ad-Aware

The first scan found over 400. My computer had been so bad that I was ready to dump the hard drive and re-load everything. It's much better now - there are still a few oddball things but for the most part, it's pretty good.

Hope yours proves to be the same. That stuff is a pain in the butt.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

9. Having a good popup blocker works well too.

Popup stopper pro and Ad aware keep my system running great.
Duckie

[tjdee]

4. Isn't that amazing?? Try Spybot Search and Destroy...

Caught some stuff for me that Ad-Aware didn't. Interestingly, Ad-Aware counts S&D like a parasite, LOL!

But it's ridiculous how much crap other people can put on your computer....I wish I knew how to do programming like that, to use my powers for good!

[ranosgol]

5. Mac's can get spyware too...btut small market share helps.

I am a Mac user too. I used to be a WINTEL user and still own a Gateway laptop for when I need ot use a native Windows App but otherwise I use the Mac.

I know 97% of the planet uses WINTEL that is fine I do not care.

Yes I know Mac's are more expensive...how many times do we have ot beat that dead horse.

I say to those who use WINTEL or LINTEL...go ahead ..I will use my Mac.

[Systematic Chaos]

6. Sometimes shit STILL gets by.

I have AdAware, SpyBot AND Norton Internet Security, but in spite of all that I was successfully attacked TWICE in the last four or five months. The first one put the My Search Bar crap on my browser and all kinds of shortcuts on my desktop for stuff like Lycos SmartSearch and I can't remember what all else. It took about 3 hours to get most of it disabled using the guidelines on the Symantec website.

Less than two weeks ago, some sort of attack caused the entire computer to crash such that it wouldn't boot into Windows at all. Just an error message about a corrupt file.

If I wasn't such an avid gamer I would be a Linux nut. As it is I'm kinda stuck. :(

[Berserker]

7. Cookies suck

get cookieWall http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/cookie.htm?
Also get Spybot S&D http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html
it will find things Ad-Aware don't and vice versa download and use both programs every week. If you use cookiewall you will find NO data miners getting on your computer. Only cookies you will need is forum cookies and if you do online banking the rest are bullshit.

[mourningdove92]

10. Use Mozilla.

Takes a little getting used to, but beats the hell out of IE.

[Bossy Monkey]

11. Get HijackThis (you too, shawcomm skygazer progrocker69)

It's a bit of a pain in the ass, because you have to do some legwork to figure out which items to delete, but that isn't really too hard. Basically you Google search anything that looks iffy (including the phrase "HijackThis log", then check against the help desk queries among the results.