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I forget all of the spyware that it uses but I do know that it uses Cydoor for caching ads locally. Adaware will detect all of the spyware modules Kazaa contains.

Or, download Ref Update so that you can update it by just hitting one button.

Or, download Ref Update so that you can update it by just hitting one button.

Every pc should be scanned with Ad-Aware. But make sure you get the latest REF file for it or you'll be scanning for OLD spy/adware. New spyware comes out all the time, you need to keep it upto date. Just like your antivirus program.

Last week? These programs have had spyware installed along with them for months (or longer). It's certainly nothing new or exciting. Get a copy of Ad-aware if you're paranoid. It seems to be pretty good at cleaning that stuff up.

Yesterday, a program called "ExPlorer" kept on crashing when I shut down my computer, and a small, unremovable box would appear in the corner of my screen at random times. I suspected a virus, but my software would not detect anything. So, I went to work myself. When my computer started crashing and my Internet connection stopped working, I opened up System Information and located a second explorer.exe in a hidden directory called Explorer.

After a few reboots, I managed to stop the program from running, and then examined its raw assembly code. From the plaintext I could decipher, it seemed to be calling some website called "2001-007.com". Renaming the file to virus.exe (in anticipation), I rebooted again, found my connection working, and visited the site.

2001-007.com is another name for ClickTillUWin, the website that comes with Limewire. Insert your own annoyed reaction here. The smegheads at ClickTillUWin had designed spyware that acted in all effect like subseven or some worm.

So, if you think you've got a virus on your Windows computer but can't detect it with the usual methods, don't panic; get Ad-aware. You'll be better off for it.

It's been put up here lord knows how many times, but here goes again. I use the Lavasoft software Ad-Aware to check and clean my system on a regular basis. Not only do I use it, if I have a friend who is having problems with their system, I usually will run it there as well. nine times out of ten they have a program that is running in the background, that Adware classifies as "Spyware". Removing the "spyware" components my the friends system often fixes the problems they are having. It always finds things that shouldn't be on their system. We can debate cookies forever, but I'm talking about software that serves ads, sends information, or otherwise takes control of your system or partially takes control.

The old sage about not installing software from unknown sources applies more than ever, I don't know who these people are, but from reports I've seen and heard I wouldn't even consider installing them.

. If I do download software and install it (it inevitable) I scan the download for viruses and trojans, backup my registry, install it and then run Ad-Aware. If Ad-Aware detects anything from the program, i uninstall the sucker. Then I reboot and run the old registry as well.

It's been put up here lord knows how many times, but here goes again. I use the Lavasoft software Ad-Aware to check and clean my system on a regular basis. Not only do I use it, if I have a friend who is having problems with their system, I usually will run it there as well. nine times out of ten they have a program that is running in the background, that Adware classifies as "Spyware". Removing the "spyware" components my the friends system often fixes the problems they are having. It always finds things that shouldn't be on their system. We can debate cookies forever, but I'm talking about software that serves ads, sends information, or otherwise takes control of your system or partially takes control.

The old sage about not installing software from unknown sources applies more than ever, I don't know who these people are, but from reports I've seen and heard I wouldn't even consider installing them.

. If I do download software and install it (it inevitable) I scan the download for viruses and trojans, backup my registry, install it and then run Ad-Aware. If Ad-Aware detects anything from the program, i uninstall the sucker. Then I reboot and run the old registry as well.

A requirement for every windows desktop.

AD-AWARE (current 5.62) is one of the BEST ad removal tools for windows computer, grab it at Lavasoft. It's free, it has updates (download the latest definition file after installing the 5.62 version) and I've tracked it's every move with a filesystem scanner, and it doesn't put thrash anywhere in your system.

It scans Registry, cookies, files, dlls, and it found the Kazaa backdoor installed in my system. Usually when you put a software you can remove it's tracking bugware and the main software will still run (I remember posting an article here over a year ago about bearshare having that same type of crap that Kazaa is using right now but it got rejected). What's interresting about Kazaa is if you remove the offending DLL (which is Cydoor bugtracking stuff), Kazaa won't start anymore, this really shows how BAD they want to track your moves.

While I don't have anything against software companies making a buck by selling tracked info, I do have something against companies being hypocritical about it. When you install Kazaa, it offers you a lot of "free stuff" that any above average users knows that it means advertising stuff, spamming and tracking. This is okay in my book at LEAST it's part of the installer and if you don't know and say yes, well that becomes your problem. What I find really hypocritical is i've unselected EVERYTHING exept "Kazaa needed files" and it STILL installed that bugware thing, and it's not mentionned anywhere CLEARLY in the installer. People get pissed at microsoft activation process which is clear, known and way less intrusive than that, but they let that pass in exchange of leeching free MP3, vids, p0rn and warez. If one day the big suppliers of content on that services have an FBI raid at their places, they'll scream justice and claim that FBI couldn't use the informatin that Kazaa was getting from them because it's not constitutionnal. Well I'd say, make up your mind, if you want P2P and privacy, go to some other service, an example, Download winMX, run Ad-aware in case there's anything installed with the newer versions, and it will probably still run after the cleaning process (I use winMX I love it). Don't support crooks like Kazaa and bearshare that are trying to look friendly, on your side, and pro this and that, while they turn around and sell your browsing habbits without your knowledge.

Also, notice when you're not uploading or downloading, but kazaa is running.. your drive burps every 5 seconds.... I'm still trying to figure out why.. it doesn't stop even after an hour.. it's not "windows-typical" drive burping.

Anyways... hope that helps anyone out there.

I wrote an article on Kuro5hin entitled The Spyware Invasion when I found out that there was a piece of Spyware(WebHancer) on my machine that was logging EVERY URL I VISITED. It turns out that this company sells these statistics that they obtain from over 16 million unsuspecting users to businesses for over $12,000 a pop.

What bothered me in particular about this approach is that I know a few websites that log users in with their pasword in the URL (Slashdot is one of them) and I wondered exactly how many of my passwords and userIDs had been sent to webHancer over the past weeks I had it unknowingly running on my machine. Of course, I quickly ran Ad-Aware on my machine and changed all my online passwords.

PS: The offending application that installed this spyware was AudioGalaxy.

Run Ad-Aware after installing it!

Home of Ad-Aware which is being held hostage in failing nameservers. . .

Ah, but the beauty of Ad-Aware is that you have the choice to remove those cookies or not. Check the box beside the cookie it and it will remove it. If you don't check it then it remains. Simple, easy and fast. After all we don't want to have to identify ourselves everytime we visit Mike's World Wide Web of Barfbags?

Ad-Aware is from Lavasoft and can be found here.

Try Ad Aware

I'll give you one reason: I'm a software developer, and one of those nasty hidden programs fucked up my system at work so bad that certain tools I have to use would not even start anymore.

It cost me 2 days to find that it was caused by something called newnet2_*.dll (IIRC), which appeared to do something with alternative TLD's. I was damned lucky to find it at that point because by chance I noticed this funny dll-name in the \winnt directory. It came with either Getright or Gozilla, programs that allowed me to resume a rather large download. More info on newnet at counterexploitation.

I did not know about ad-aware at that time. I now run it often, and I use Proxomitron as well. I found proxomitron here, 'official' site is here. Oh, and don't forget to get new definition files for Ad-Aware regularly!

Recently I was having problems with my development Windows computer. When I would visit controversial sites like The Register, I would get pop-up ads for porn sites. Believe me, these were not even R-rated pop-up ads. The first couple of times it happened I was wondering why The Register would have porn advertisement associated with their site.

Since I always say no to downloading everything, I assumed that I was totally immune. Then I remembered a site that I needed to look at that required me to download something for me to just see the text on their screen. So I am assuming that they placed this program on my computer, since all I use this computer for is web surfing... Uh, I mean testing web sites.

The solution - I found this great freeware tool that will scan your computer and allow you to clean it. All that it scans for is spyware, but as soon as I used it, the porn ads were gone. Ad Aware is freeware. Download it, you might be surprised. I came up with 140 files and my friend (who says no to everything) came up with over 150 files.

I have to agree. I had been using Morpheus from Music City for a couple months when someone recommended Lava Soft to me. To my surprise, I found 386 bits of spyware on my system. Swifty deleted, I still use Morpheus because its a good shareware program, but I scan my computer for more spyware every time I start it up.

-David 'Klep' Kleppinger, Raving Lunatic

This is one of the worst things I know, SpyWare - I simply hate freeware/shareware/ad-ware programs that use SpyWare - I recently installed KaZaa (p2p filesharing) - but 5 minutes after, not having run it, I uninstalled it, because it had installed Cydoor software on my computer (when I explicitly told it not to install it). I removed Cydoor - but then KaZaa wouldn't run.

Worried if you have SpyWare? Get ad-aware from LavaSoft - it's free and reliable.
Or you can just check your programs here - just enter the name of the software...
Or Steve Gibson's (grc.com) OptOut

Don't use SpyWare!

Also... programs such as AudioGalaxy's satilite proggy will try to install gator by default. Gator is a crackwhore to remove too...

The article does mention Ad Aware to get rid of this if you accidently let it get installed in the first place. In addition I use the Proxomitron to just get rid of those annoying pop-ups/unders/whatever completely. It's fully configurable and let's you create your own filters in a manner similar to Perl's regular expressions.

In the unlikely case noone else has mentioned it so far, Ad-Aware is a very useful tool for getting rid of all sorts of junk unscrupulous companies install on your computer along with their programs.

But as a user, you're right -- there's no real benefit to most foistware, which is why it has to be sneakily foisted onto your system in the first place. So, you either live with it, remember to opt-out at install, or, if the option to opt-out has been denied you, you forcefully opt-out by removing the spyware/adware after-the-fact.

Check out LavaSoft's Ad-Aware utility to nuke spyware from Windows-based machines.

Check out Ad-Aware from LavaSoft if you want to remove the spyware that BearShare installs:

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/