Patrick_S

AdAware removal help

Somehow a program named AdAware got installed on my computer and now I'm getting flooded with pop ads when I surf with IE.

How do I get rid of this program? I have looked everywhere and cannot find is location.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Steve_Ch

Are you sure it's Adaware that's causing the pop up?? Adaware is supposed to be a program that eliminates Adware on your system, I've been using Adaware for years (and on my system running as I type this), I don't recall ever getting pop ads from them.

Christian Behrens

I also doubt AdAware is the culprit. Besides, it's listed right in the Installed Software list, ready to get uninstalled if I wanted to.

-Christian

\"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.\" (Benjamin Franklin)

StephenL

If it's Ad-Aware from Lavasoft, run it and see if it finds any spyware/adware on your computer. Also, turn off Messenger. In XP, Start > Control Panel > Performance and Maintenance > Administrative Tools > Services > Right Click Messenger > Properties > Startup Type > Disabled.

See these tips for securing your PC:
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/a...452576,00.html

\"It\'s most disappointing. I shall have to go all-out on some modifications.\"

Patrick_S

Gentlemen thank you for your responses you are correct that I was mistaken. (Man talk about being lazy, I should take the time to be more careful in what I'm reading. I'd like to blame the Cold Meds that I'm taking but that's not good enough of an excuse for being that lazy.)

Could the culprit be Gator.com? I've run Spybot S&D and there are several entries for Gator.com. Interestingly when tell Spybot to remove them and they still show back up.

I think I'll now go and try to manually remove them and see if that takes care of the problem.

Patrick_S

Stephen thanks for the messenger tip. I turned that off a long time ago but check after your tip and was surprised to discover that it was back on. Hopefully that will take care of the problem.

Thanks again to everyone for all the responses.

NickT

Are these gator references cookies? If so, they will keep appearing when you go to pages with their ads unless you use some sort of cookie control.

Also, if you clean your system with Spybot or AdAware, you need to reboot afterwards and rescan. Sometimes it takes more than one scan to clean things out.

Patrick_S

Thanks again for all the replies, I'm not certain which items did it but turning off messenger and running Spybot several times has taken care of the problem.

Jeff Savage

Yes it was gator.com. Take a look at this article

If you do a Google search you can probably find out more information on them. Anyway what happens is that you will go to a website that has an agreement with them and a pop-up box will appear saying in order to view this site you need to run and install an applet from gator.com. If you agree to this and actually run it..BAM your PC is now full of spyware. If you read the popup box it actually contains the user agreement that tells you what you are about to do and that by clicking ok you are fine with it.

These guys are all tricky bastards and I wish that this type of decit was not allowed. The only thing I can say is that you need to be very very careful about what you allow to be downloaded on your PC.

Laters,
Jeff

...wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world...