Rant: I nominate Lavasoft for a Nobel Prize

[BurtWorm]

A peace prize, for my peace of mind.

I just downloaded their free AdAware to help me get rid of a major nuisance I absent-mindedly allowed onto my computer last week, a disgusting piece of shit spamware called "Intelligent Explorer" which grabs firm hold of your hard drive, processor and registry and won't let go no matter how many times you delete the programs. IE (get it? the bastids!) infests your computer with several annoying popup generators (called something like bargain.exe or mobetterbargains.exe) and a phony "search engine" toolbar that appears on every Internet Explorer window. Anytime you open a real IE window, a flood of pop-ups clutters the desktop, many to addresses that no longer exist (probably becasue they've been shut down by creditors or the "authorities") and just stall, the rest to sites like Classic Poker, FindRomance and Entrepreneur.com.

When you try to delete the garbage this thing forces on you, you're taken through an annoying uninstall process that asks why you would even think of deleting such a "useful" piece of crap, and then doesn't even have the decency to uninstall completely but only enough so that a self-installer remains to reinfest you when you reboot. Can you imagine being either evil or dumb enough to believe dumping such a vicious piece of shit program onto unsuspecting "customers" is an effective way to advertise? I imagine IE's motive is to sucker the loser "entrepreneurs" who advertise through them only to wind up loathed by people like me who are unlucky enough to be "targeted" by their annoying popups. I mean who actually likes being the target of advertising for products you don't need?! Is there anybody anywhere who does?!

In conclusion, should you be unfortunate to have this happen to you, AdAware from Lavasoft SE is free and fixes the problem by ironing out every last dent these evil bastids make on your system.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Get Firefox.

Install it. Set it as your default browser.

Never have these problems again.

While you are at it: Get Thunderbird too. Best email client you'll never have to pay for or get crammed down your throat by a fundimentally corrupt marketing company that creates an OS as its data collection tool.

[BurtWorm]

5. I just did it. I'll see what happens.

Thanks for the tip. :toast:

[underpants]

2. Spybot-Spysweeper-and Lavasoft all of them

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=2019285

[Aiptasia]

4. Spybot search and distroy

Spyware and Adware creators must die...

[BurtWorm]

7. I contracted my disease at a lyric site as well.

:grr:

[underpants]

8. Those things are crazy with pop-ups and programs

What gives?

[BurtWorm]

9. I think you were right that they're vulnerable to royalty charges

:shrug: Or else lyrics just naturally draw a criminal element?

[underpants]

10. That must be it

the royalties thing I mean

[eataTREE]

3. I've never had one virus or piece of spyware on my Linux or Mac computers.

Nuff said.

[laheina]

6. Yup.

But with my PC, now Microsoft has this new "here it comes, want it or not" firewall stuff that it sneaks onto your machine in an update file. I guess that they are tired of all the viruses -- or being the target of said viruses. I had to turn the damn firewall OFF just to download work stuff from MY OWN website. I hate it (sob). Of course, I may not be intelligent enough to figure out how to work it.