Help please - this is driving me crazy

[samuel23]

Since Friday night I have started getting hundreds of pop-ups. These are always from the same four or five sites and I get a small pop-up at the bottom of the page that says 'Ads served by InternetSoftware'.
I have no idea where this came from, it's really ruining my web browsing and it seems to be immune to everything. It has evaded the windows pop-up blocker, the yahoo pop-up blocker and when I run my F-secure (talktalk online security) anti spyware it comes up clean. Anyone know
a - how this got there in the first place
b - how to get rid of it and
c - how to stop it happing again

Any help greatly appreciated.
Thanks in Advance

[vehelpfulguy]

There is a long discussion here that MAY help, although you have to plugh through a lot of text that may not be helpful.

http://www.besttechie.net/forums/index.php?sho wtopic=13749&st=0&p=111832&#entry111832

A person here with similar problem

http://forums.govteen.com/showthread.php?t=247 887

[vehelpfulguy]

>a - how this got there in the first place

Thing like this often come down "hidden" inside other programs.

Do you or your children go to sites that offer free games, ringtones or things like that ? I could come down from there.

Do you or your family download things from "file sharing" programs like limewire. Sometime things like this are "hidden" inside files that pretend they are a music files or a picture (jpg) but are actually programs.

Music files have names like "song.mp3" but some people pretend a file is a song by calling it "music.mp3............this is great.exe"

At first glance it looks like a song called music.mp3, but the long file name actually ends in EXE which is a program (files which end in SCR are also programs).

Someone clicks on "music.mp3" thinking they are going to play a song but it actally runs a program which installs this type of program.

These are some of the ways these sort of files get on your computer.

[vehelpfulguy]

> c - how to stop it happening again

I suggest running a program like WinPatrol. Get it for free from here

http://www.winpatrol.com/

After you install it then it runs all the time in the background and it monitors your Windows system. It informs you of any new program that tries to install itself, or if anyone tries to change your internet settings.

You get the chance to say NO and a program is not installed.

You can also look at many Windows files and programs and sort them by date to see if any have been aded recently that you dont know about.

For example with WinPatrol you can check StartUp programs and see if any have been added recently, and also hidden files that may have been added recently.

WinPatrol is an excellent program that everyone should have running on their computer.

[samuel23]

vehelpfulguy. What can I say ~ you are a star. Seems the problem started after my nephew had visited some games sites (something called gamershell and another called big fish?) Little horror didn't say anything - just logged off. I
have now installed WinPatrol and am currently sorting through the rubbish that has got on here.

Sorry that 3 stars is the best I can give, this was definitely a 5* answer

[vehelpfulguy]

Glad I could help.

Can I make a suggestion.

If you are going to let other people use your computer create a separate logon for them and make them a limited user (this is for XP, Vista may be different)

Go into the Windows Control Panel and select User Accounts.

Select "Create a new account" and give it a name "Nephew" or something like that, and make it a "limited user" rather than administrator.

Make sure you nephew only uses that log on.

In fact if you add a password to YOUR logon then they can ONLY use their logon.

A "limited user" has limited power and one of the things is that they cannot install programs.

Also if they do muck anything up it only happens on THEIR id and not yours. Yours should be left alone.

[figure]

Helpfulguy - you're the most brilliant IT person I've come across. Every advice you've given, some not directly to me but I've tried some, and they worked perfectly.

Soon as I see your name pop up in the 'recent post' section I rush to read what you have to say. Men with 'brains' attracts me, you are attracting me. lol

I think I'll follow your suggestion on this question also.

[shylock73]

Without a doubt veryhelpfulguy is a VERY HELPFUL GUY.

[samuel23]

definite 5* rating vhguy
problem solved thanks a million

[sleepyj]

hello samuel how are you ? sorrydont know the answer to question but thought i would say hi ...