Hi Richard... et al..
I've just read through the site you posted. Not bad as a first go, if a might simplistic, and will probably get most of the scum off your machine... the end, really.
Adaware is very good at what it does, within preset limits. It won't for instance take out the more invasive BHOs (Browser Helper Objects).
It also says prepare to "Nuke" New.Net. More than half of the time, a quick trip to Add/Remove Programs will suffice. But when removal screws the winsock and you can no longer access the internet for further advice, you'd probably wish that you had left well alone.
Don't get me wrong though, any
good advice (not withstanding the above exception) is better than none.
I could give examples of virii that aren't eradicated by the best AV apps;
peper.a being one of the more recent ones that has needed the writing of a special script (Dr.peper), in order to get rid of it. Where do you find, and more importantly learn how to use it, if you don't even know that you've got
peper.a?
When you run a virus scan, either online or from a resident program, and it says that the infected file can't be deleted...
Is that because..
A.. it's in System Restore, and therefore able to run happily, and at the same time avoid deletion, or
B.. did your mail checker catch it and quarantine it.
No problem with
B, but a big (depending on which one you got) problem with
A. Then you have many trojans which can evade detection by the usual AV methods. If your latest copy of NAV (updated to the hilt) says
clean, why would you ever think otherwise.
Another one is CoolWebSearch.. Adaware and Spybot can both limit the damage on the older versions, but if you have one of the later variants like
Smartsearch for instance, you may not even be able to open most security apps for long enough to run them, or even stay conected to the website long enough to download them in the first place.
Who goes to the
Shredder download site and scrolls down to the bottom of the page, reads all the boring "techiebits" about byte verifier exploits, and then gets the relevant patches from Microsoft.. especially when they just grab a direct link from a webpage, and think running it once will cure all their problems.
Don't get me wrong, he's written good advice in the main but.. to coin a phrase.."If only life were that easy".
One that still makes me giggle..
then cry..
(So I wanted to use the emoticon, does that make me a bad person??)
Q.. I get porn popups on my computer all the time, how can I fix it?
A.. Install Google's toolbar!
You might get lucky, but that's all it is. The question has been answered without knowing anything about the real cause behind the problem.
Just thought I'd put in a few comment's from someone on the front line as t'were.
I apologise if this looks a bit over-zealous. You may I think I'm a right old cynic, and .. and you're probably right..
but I usually spend several hours each day putting machines straight, when these snippets of information either do little or nothing to cure the main problem, or worse; as in the case of a corrupt winsock, destroy their connection completely.
Hope it helps to give you all a sense of perspective, when dealing with this scum.
Cheers
Liam