security pop ups

[camberly]

hi , i keep getting security pop ups on my connection telling me i have registry errors and the such like and if i dont go to these certain places my comp may die, i have windows registry repair and when i use it it says my comp is clean , do i need to take any notice of these anoying pop ups or is there a way of stopping them completely???

any advice will be truely appreciated thanks

[nfn]

I fell for that one once. I can't remember offhand who it was but I clicked. It told me it had detected over 100 faults and would clean them, it 'cleaned' about 10 then said I would have to pay a substantial sum to subscribe to get the rest done.

At the time, I was having some work done by a pc engineer who tutted when I told him what I'd done. He removed the reminder pop-ups I kept getting and had to remove the original message from DOS to stop my machine crashing every hour or so. He then put me onto Firefox and Gozilla and I've had no problems since, touch wood!!

I'd say, if you want a registry cleaner get one for yourself. Don't take any notice of these cold callers.

[Ralph]

Most probably spyware. For a start, get Ad-Aware, Spybot Search & Destroy and Microsoft AntiSpyware and run them all. Some find things that the others won't.

These will probably fix your problem, but if it doesn't, post back 'cos there's other stuff you can do.

[Ralph]

Oh, nfn's giving even more good advice. Firefox will mean you attract loads less rubbish than if you use IE, recommended.

Also as nfn says, ignore any of the popups. They're trying to lure you into something you wouldn't volunteer for.

Be very careful with any Registry Cleaner. Removing large parts of your registry will only end in tears and operating system reinstallation. System Restore in XP helps minimise the chances of this happening, but be careful all the same.

[nfn]

Thanks Ralph, I'm REALLY bad at computer stuff (hence my it man) but he's taught me good. If you want it ask, if you don't ignore.

[crop]

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