What's all this stuff running in Windows Task Manager? (1 Viewer)

[Leo_P]

Right now I have 25 processes running. And that's that I ended a couple that looked unnecessary.
One of them is something related to the game "Dope Wars". My brother was over here and decided to download this game. Now I have this process called "trickler..." that runs every time I start my computer. I removed the game, but it still runs a process.
I have ZoneAlarm and it's telling me that Netscape is listening to port TCP: 5180 and Generic Host Process for Win 32 Services is listening to TCP port 5000. What's all this mean?
Is somebody or something messing with my computer?

 

[John*Jones]

Here is a good site to check out that will explain what most of those processes are and whether or not it is safe to disable them: Task List Programs

I think trickler might be a component of Gator (oh how I loathe that piece of software, along with Lop!!!).

I'd definitely download and run Spybot and AdAware.

Here is an article discussing trickler.exe: Stopping Spyware

 

[Kevin-M]

You can stop some programs from autorunning at startup by using Msconfig.

Click Start>Run - type in msconfig and hit enter. When the window opens, click the Startup tab. This will list all the programs that will start automatically at windows startup. Simply unchecking the checkbox next to entries you want to disable, and then restarting will stop them from loading.

 

[MikeH1]

Except quicktime. I hate that program, after I use it to watch a video from a link or whatever it always weasels its way back into my taskmanager and I have to shut it off in the start up menu and reboot.

I only run my firewall in the background when I boot up. Keeps things nice and clean for my gaming

 

[Leo_P]

I can't thank you guys enough!
I downloaded Spybot, ran that and it picked up a bunch of stuff. Then I downloaded and ran AdAware and it still picked up 16 "things". That's just crazy!!!
So now I have ZoneAlarm, Norton's AntiVirus, AdAware and Spybot, all behind a router. Now, I'm ready to rock 'n roll.
Seriously, it pisses me off we gotta go through all this crap. Why people want to get in my business and mess with my computer is beyond me. Like Michael Jackson said: LEAVE ME ALONE!