450 spyware infections!?!?!?!?

[rockymountaindem]

Gaaaaaahhh!

On edit: it's up to over 700 now. I'm going to bet that most of these aren't really spyware. My computer works fine. If I had that many infections it'd on fire by now.

[StopTheMorans]

1. you need a girl/boyfriend

[ohiosmith]

6. That's funny man.

:rofl:

[StopTheMorans]

7. thanks, man

:7

[rockymountaindem]

8. You're tellin' me...

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. Personally, I'd nuke the drive.

Pull all documents and saved info and start again. Ad-aware can only do so much to fix it. It might be operable, but chances are good you'll only wind up reinfecting it.

[lancdem]

3. I never had that many, but when I swtiched from dial-up to DSL

I was inundated with spyware. I ended up getting Comcast high-speed, and I kept my AOL broadband.

[benburch]

4. How to reduce that to Zero

Get a Mac!

[rockymountaindem]

5. I'm finally seeing the light.

I only downloaded the spyware buster because of one thing that keeps popping up. I do a better job protecting my home PC, but here at college I've sort of let my laptop go.

Seriously, I've been wary of Macs for a long time, but I think next time I'll just get an i-Book.

What makes them so spyware resistant?

[miss_kitty]

9. no networking on a Mac

you can get browsers that'll cut down on spyware (Firefox, Avant) And get software that Stops spyware from being installed in the first place (Spyware Blaster)

Careful when you remove stuff-it's best to quarantine the spyware to make sure you're not removing necessary stuff to run.

[benburch]

10. A couple of things.

First, it is a minority platform, and less attention is paid to it, second it is difficult to infect by design, and they are very aggressive at closing security holes when they are found. Windows probably can never be as resistant to this sort of attack as a Mac is.

[Jamison]

11. Format Windows & re-install then...

- Make sure you use Windows update to get SP2 and all the latest patches.

- Install a good firewall (not the crappy built-in Windows version). I like the free version of Zone Alarm.

- Get a good anti-virus program & install it.

- Use these anti-spyware tools (all of them) Spyware Search & Destroy, Lavasoft Ad-Aware, & Microsoft Anti-Spyware. Make sure their signatures are updated.

- Use Mozilla Firefox instead of IE

You should be OK then. Oh, and one more thing...watch what you download, and install a lot of little free programs and P2P programs come with spyware in them.

[ashmanonar]

13. the programming on a mac is so different, and it's all proprietary

so that there's no "market" for spyware and viruses on macs. same with viruses. even if you do get one, it doesn't spread easiliy because of the OS architecture (a graphic visual interface integrated with a unix secure core)

and yes, you're better served buying an ibook than a pc. pc's are generally "faster", but macs don't have as many software conflicts or these other issues that make pc's hell to work with.

[ashmanonar]

12. indeed!

not one piece of spyware, only occasionally a virus or two. less if you firewall.

[rockymountaindem]

14. Well, it's better now.

There were only like 15 things really. I guess there were a total of 1100 files amongst them. But I deleted them and everything is fine.