OT but Did Anyone Try AdAware?

So? Did anyone try it? What were the results?

 

As you are asking a question, I feel obliged to respond.

No.

 

Well, I was hoping someone would. :sad:
I just thought I could help a few people out, but, hey, no skin off my sheep. :smile:

 

I downloaded it, but was too scared to install it. Ironically enough, it was because I didn't have any way of checking whether it was spyware or not.

But... I'll do it if you do, FK. Let's hold hands. It'll be just like the ending to Thelma and Louise. Except that we're two guys. And there's no car. Or cliff.

 

I "tested" it on my comp at work for months before I even owned a computer. But it was one of the first progs I downloaded on my home box, and I baby this thing. I love it. Read the USER reviews at CNET. Don't trust CNET itself, 'cause they get paid off, I think.

 

There's also no cops after you. They are after Feldon though...I heard it had to do with a sheep...

 

adware is great, simply put.

 

Well, it seems that I must try ADAware when I get my own friggin' internet connection at home!!!.

 

can someone give me a link where I can find this Adaware you people keep taking about?

 

Well, seeing as it's hosted at C|Net (isn't it?) I'd say that http://www.cnet.com is a good place to start :smile:.

Also Feldon, seeing as this is the General Discussion board, I fail to see how this thread is OT. After all, the description says we can talk about anything in here...

 

Can someone tell me (and feel free to cringe silently if you get embarrassed) is AdAware pretty much for people who have something to hide (like, maybe, a porn-surfing addiction :wink: ).

I'm on broadband (ADSL) and use a firewall (zonealarm personal) to protect myself from hacking and an antivirus (AVG personal) to protect me against script-kiddie mail infection. I keep up with SP's and security updates, and run a pretty tight ship with regards to avoiding problems caused by my own stupidity (eg. "Yes I want to trust this corporation I've never heard of, go ahead an install it").

I opt out of everything, and never opt in. One of my mail accounts get's one spam a day, always from the same place ("Reduce your debt now, blah blah") and my other accounts are spam free (although I did have to ditch my original ISP account a few years back due to detritus that accumulated before I knew how to protect myself).

Real Jukebox/Player/Download are the only spyware threats I'm aware of on my computer (although I believe a recent Diablo patch may have made that a risk now too) and I think I'm winning the battle there (mainly by limiting my use of them to ripping mp3's with Jukebox, and giving them zero access through ZA).

What other spyware apps should I be careful about, and should I really bother with AdAware? When I read your original recommendation in the other thread, Feldon, I had a pretty similar reaction to Milo (i.e. "hmmm ... these adaware guys seem to know an awful lot about spying ...")

 

I'm downloading adaware right now.

I'm simply curious how much spyware I have on my comp.

 

I use AdAware for a couple reasons. Mainly, it's the principle of the thing. I don't like people sneaking little progs onto my 'puter. Progs that constantly run in the background and suck up system resources. Add to that the fact that the progs report your surfing habits to people for their benefit.
I'm really not concerned about people seeing where I go on the Net, but it pisses me off when someone tries to steal my resources for their own use. And the sneaky way they do it makes it even worse.
As I've said, go to CNET and read the user reviews before downloading. If you still don't want to, fine. But I'm keeping my AdAware.

 

Adaware seems to work fine for me. I did have quite a few of these running at work (darn inherited computers). One of which I don't think Adaware will be able to do anything about. If anyone has a program called "MSBB" running in their task list, that right there is the most annoying Add sowftware I've seen. Good luck getting rid of it (if you have it I'll explain a "workaround" :wink:

Unfortunately, Mr. Fatman, a number of sites will do wonderful things like send add software to you no matter what kind of place it is. I'm sure you are quite aware that pr0n sites aren't the only place you can pick up these "trinkets". :sad:

 

I

I've used it and it seems to work half-way decent but its not 100%, its like a virus scanner it can only find what on it's list and theres always new ones. Its pretty easy to find out which programs are spyware anymore. The new thing though seems to be all these cookies that are a form of spyware. Not sure how they work but there are several my firewall stops from trying to hijack IExplorer to connect to an address. These nasty little cookies could be just an invasive form of demographics but it looks like the potential for abuse is definately there. BTW its not just porn sites that do this kind of stuff as some people would like to believe, Altavista has that "Doubleclick" cookie thats always trying to phone home. I quit using it because my firewall catches anything trying to get in or out so it was redundant.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Otto Krupp on 2001-12-09 08:15 ]</font>

 

Welcome to the forum, Otto. :smile:
Yes, AdAware is like a virus scanner, and they update now and then to deal with new spyware. Those "cookies" you mentioned are all over the place. I did a search for lyrics yesterday and got two Doubleclicks. Of course, AdAware eliminated them.
Sheriff, CNET gives a little summary on AdAware. There's a list of some of the things the program will find. You could remove spyware manually, but AdAware runs a deep scan in less than a minute, tells you what it's found, and gives you the option of removing the spyware or not. Quick and painless.
Keep in mind that some progs won't work if you delete the spyware component. The most infamous is AudioGalaxy. If you tried to uninstall it or remove the spyware, it crashed your system, or so the story goes. Just for fun, I installed AG on a work comp, then AdAware'd it, and got rid of the spyware without a crash.

 

I suggest http://www.google.com as a search engine Otto. I started using it many many moons ago and they haven't changed a whole lot. Still works like a champ and usually even finds what I'm looking for! (amazing, a search engine that seems to function).

Note: Don't type with your feet it doesn't work well

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Squish on 2001-12-09 10:22 ]</font>

 

tried ADaware and it didn't find anything on my system but it's a complete brand new one that's been operating for only 3 mths or so plus i've had blackice v2.5 running even before i set up my net connection so that may of helped or not

 

A mate of mine read some comparisons of firewalls (I'll try to get him to dig them up for edit). BlackIce Def didn't do as well as you might think, and didn't touch Zonealarm.

Otto, I wanna second Squish's recommendation. Google rocks. I've seen a lot of search engines hit their peak then sell out/fade away since I've been using the web, but Google has never let me down in the year or so since I switched to it.

 

HOLY SHIT!

Ok, you wanted someone to help, Feldon, help me. I ran a deep scan on my system and Ad Aware spit this out:

0 Identified processes
32 Indentified Registry Keys
6 Identified folders
101 Identified Files
20 Running Processes (!)
139 Components found (!!!)
0 Components Ignored
139 New components

!!!

I'M BEING VIOLATED BY THE AD COMPANIES! WHERE IS RALPH NADER WHEN YOU NEED HIM?!

Ok, so I checked the list of files and reg keys and most of the offenders are from these groups:

• Aureate
• Timesink
• Cydoor
• Onflow
• DoubleClick
• Flyswat
• An assload of "Other" files in my cookie folder
• Hotbar (reg scan turned this one up)

My question is, which ones are "safe" to remove? I was aware that the file-sharing program I used (KaZaa) had some spyware associated with it. Does anyone know which file(s) it is specifically? And if I remove it, will the program still run? Are there any good file-sharing programs that aren't spyware or who's spyware can be removed?

And could someone recommend a good free firewall? Can someone explain a little on what exactly a firewall does? Man, seeing ad aware turn up all this hidden shit kinda freaks me out.

I think it's time I got a little more serious about securing my computer...