Gator Infestation

[PeteS_in_CA]

Our 'puter has been infested by Gator for a lot longer than I've been aware of what it does - bring in @#$% $%^& %^&* pop-ups despite our pop-up blocker. Has anyone heard of//used this program, http://www.lavasoft.nu/software/adaware/ , to get rid of Gator and other spyware?

[tacitus]

Adware works just fine for getting right of that spyware. I use it at home and it does a good job. I have seen gator on my daughters computer but it isn't there very long. It's some search sw I think.

[nosferatuscoffin]

Get AdAware from Lavasoft (http://www.lavasoftusa.com). It is the best program for removing spyware and data miners from your system. A new build just came out for it and also, Wyvern also has some nice plugins for it.

I highly suspect you will find a lot of spyware on your system, not just Gator. I would recommend running it every couple of weeks. I run mine every week or so, and even with all of the security I have on my network, a few pieces of spyware slip through here and there.

[PeteS_in_CA]

Nos,

Same folks as I asked about, but when I tried (before posting) the site you linked and their .de site, both were unavailable. Thanks for the recommendation. How idiot-tolerant is their SW, especially initial set-up? Some days I'm passable, but my munchkins, who have laptops, may be less so.

[nosferatuscoffin]

[ QUOTE ]
PeteS_in_CA said:
Nos,

Same folks as I asked about, but when I tried (before posting) the site you linked and their .de site, both were unavailable. Thanks for the recommendation. How idiot-tolerant is their SW, especially initial set-up? Some days I'm passable, but my munchkins, who have laptops, may be less so.

[/ QUOTE ]

The link I gave above, http://www.lavasoftusa.com is the USA site and it is very much up and active right now.

Setup is a breeze and there are also plug-ins available for it. You also have the option of having it run in the background and intercepting known spyware that tries to DL to your hard drive, similar to an AV program. That can take up a fair amount of Windows resources, so you are probably better off just running the stand alone application once every week or two.

[Timberwolf]

[ QUOTE ]
nosferatuscoffin said:
Get AdAware from Lavasoft (http://www.lavasoftusa.com). It is the best program for removing spyware and data miners from your system. A new build just came out for it and also, Wyvern also has some nice plugins for it.

I highly suspect you will find a lot of spyware on your system, not just Gator. I would recommend running it every couple of weeks. I run mine every week or so, and even with all of the security I have on my network, a few pieces of spyware slip through here and there.

[/ QUOTE ]
Have you ever heard of Spybot?? That's the spyware removal program that I've been running.

[nosferatuscoffin]

Spybot is fine. I just prefer AdAware myself, since it seems to be more robust. The important thing is that you have a spyblock/cleaner on your system.

[PeteS_in_CA]

TW,

I've heard this guy, http://www.everythingcomputers.com/ , recommend both AdAware and Spybot. It was from his radio show that I learned what Gator did.

[PeteS_in_CA]

Finally downloaded it. Love it! For multi-user XP systems, every user needs to scan individually. We've cleaned out over 600 "objects" since Sunday (9/21) - Gator gone!

[Rocketman]

USE BOTH SPYBOT AND ADAWARE!!!

These two programs compliment each other, and both work in slightly different ways. I usually run adaware first, then spybot.

I also no longer use Zone Alarm as my firewall. Kerio personal firewall provides much more information and control for the same price...FREE!



The views expressed above are those of the poster and his alone. What he does with his PC is his business, as is what you do with yours.

[PeteS_in_CA]

And adding a 24K "Duh!", use the "Ckeck for updates now" function on Ad-aware. I found 10 or 12 objects this morning on our scanned-yesterday machine after doing an update. Growl!

[DoctorDoom]

My gripe with AdAware is that it's website looks like shit on Opera 6.05, so I have to open IE to navigate it. When the hell are the web designers going to learn to program in legitimate code?

[nosferatuscoffin]

Since Opera is still a fairly new browser that only recently has reached maturity, a lot of sites are not optimized for it. Especially sites that use more basic layouts with basic HTML commands, as opposed to sites that use a cross-browser compatible CSS.

Give it time. More and more sites will optimize for it as time goes on and Opera catches on, as it is doing nowadays.

[DoctorDoom]

The ones that pee me off are those that use illegitimate HTML coding that doesn't meet W3C specs. They display properly on the fault-tolerant IE but look like crap in the Opera browser, which because of its small footprint, expects proper HTML and doesn't have all that extra stuff that compensates for poor coding.

I guess if Opera wants to add another ten megs, it can handle the out-of-spec pages. But, with a DL (without Java) of less than 3.5 megs, it can't have everything.

And, I have the IE bloatware on standby, just in case.

I did, BTW, fetch AAW6 and the latest defs, and ran it for the first time on this box. It found a grand total of ten items, one Alexa registry key and nine IE cookies. Being the only one who uses the box and being paranoid about security pays off.

[nosferatuscoffin]

Very true on people coding with non-standard HTML. Some of that is caused by people using the free crapware frontends (Geocities, AngelFire etc). It is also caused by stupidity as well.

Opera is nice and compact and is a lovely browser. It is not surprising it is really catching on lately. But like you said, you always need IE bloatware on standby.

Good job on keep your spyware down. I generally only find a couple of things here and there when I run AdAware. Then again, I run it every 7-10 days as well.