Absolutely- malicious programs called "adware", "spyware", and "hijackware".
You can get infested with these nasties simply by visiting certain web sites; you don't even have to download anyhting (knowingly, anyway).
I'm moving this thread to our Security forum, which is where we focus on these issues. Have a read through the other threads there to find out just how prevalent these problems are, and how to protect yourself from them. A good, short synopsis of the whole mess can be found here:
http://www.computercops.biz/postt7736.html
DMR
Wombat At Large
7,229 posts since Dec 2003
Reputation Points: 221
Solved Threads: 370
Location: My house
OS: Windows 98
I have a computer that is messed up!
We had to get a new one because this one was so bad. What happend was ablout every few hrs (mostly when getting on the Internet) a million popups would come up, one after the other and when you closed one, 10 more would pop up. Eventually the computer would be low on resources and then I would have to shut the computer down.
Anyone know what on Earth is causing this?
Might I suggest Ad-Aware and Spybot
Download the latest version of Ad-Aware at ADAWARE
Download SPYBOT
How to setup Ad-Aware and Spy-Bot S&D
http://www.zerosrealm.com/scanning.php
And after that, please do the following:
Download 'Hijack This!'. HERE
Unzip (extract) it to a folder of its own.Like c:\HJT\hijackthis.exe , Then Doubleclick HijackThis.exe (in the new folder), and hit "Scan".
When the scan is finished, the "Scan" button will change into a "Save Log" button.
Press that, then Ctrl-A to Select All, and copy its contents here. for hijackthis,most of what it lists will be harmless or even essential, don't fix anything yet.
reboot computer and post a new hijackthis log
caperjack
I hate 20 Questions
13,069 posts since Aug 2003
Reputation Points: 1,064
Solved Threads: 812
