I was just blitzed by a bazillion pop up ads. A notice came up and said that people could spy into my computer. Then my disk drives started opening. I couldn’t even get to my internet home page. I restarted and checked my internet settings and found my default home page was switched. I changed it back, deleted all cookies and history. The problem seems to be fixed. Is there anything else I should/can do to prevent this from reoccuring?
two things:
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download Zone Alarm (free) firewall
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download the Google toolbar with pop-up blocker (mine has blocked 781 popus to date)
you can also get a free spyware checker, if you need it
DO THIS TODAY!!!
I’m not computer savy. Where do I get Zone Alarm and Google?
I like this toolbar much better than Google’s: http://companion.yahoo.com/
Go here for the spyware checker: http://www.safer-networking.org/
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I like the Pop-up Stopper software from panicware.
The free edition works nicely. Note that variations of the pay version are also freely available from many ISP’s. You may want to check your ISP home page to see if there is a version available to you.
Otherwise, you can download it at http://www.panicware.com/
Get the Mozilla 1.5 browser. It’s free and works great at blocking pop-ups.
Getting Mozilla is the right answer. Go their page and download the latest version of their browser You can diddle with the settings and get rid of all the pop ups.
I only use IE on those few pages like Windows update that don’t work with Mozilla.
While thesuggestions in the previous posts will definitely help with popups, it sounds like you may have spyware on your computer. Unless you remove the spyware, your computer will remain infected. I have found a free program called Spybot to be very effective in removing spyware. Follow the link to download the program.
Donwload ZoneAlarm for a firewall, and get Netscape 7.1. It can remember all of your passwords for you, and it can block those d#$% pop-ups.
There’s also Ad-Aware (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/) which will scan your machine for spyware and let you delete it.
Finally, if you’re really technically minded you can download and install Privoxy (http://www.privoxy.org). It’s a proxy which will remove all ads from everywhere you browse, prevent all coookies and stop all pop-ups. Downside is that it will also remove JavaScript from most pages which could cause problems with online banking and a couple of other things.
also delete all your temporary internet files
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The free version of pop-up stopper is great, been using it for a couple of years.
I use Opera for a browser which has it’s own pop-up window control and it lets me say no to microsoft IE.
jaretj
If you are using MS IE install the Google Toolbar!!! It is a must have! http://www.google.com/options/
Scroll down select the Google Toolbar. It will install an ever present little search toolbar which allows you to google for stuff without leaving the current page or opening another. Great new feature includes an easy pop-up blocker!