Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Technical Help and How To's Does this sound like Ad-ware?

My laptop crash tonight I think it said that it had to dump something but that if this was the first time it happened not to worry but if it kept happening them call your computer company.

After that one of my windows started actting funny which it's been doing off and on for about two weeks when I go to my address bar type in a address and instead of going there it keeps flashing on the lower task bar web address.

This is reminds me of what my old computer did once before it crashed and I had spy-ware on it.

I was just wonder if this sounds like that to anyone else. I have virus protection for my computer and have ran scans that keep coming up empty.

It's quite possible you've been infected by spyware or ad-ware or viruses. The first thing you described is on a blue screen, right? That's universally known as the BSOD, or the Blue Screen of Death. What it's doing is dumping information from memory, the stack, and registers to a file so a programmer-geek type like me can troll through the file and figure out what happened to blue screen your computer (see, it's so infamous it's become a verb).

The second part sounds like a virus, possibly. With over 200,000 varieties, I couldn't tell you which one. If it takes you to another website, it's probably ad-ware. If it doesn't but just destabilizes your computer, it's probably a virus.

If you have different virus scanners, use them. What one can't catch, another may. Ad-aware is okay for some ad-ware but it's hardly comprehensive. I'd recommend another package called Ewido. It seems to find much more stuff and is able to kill them much more efficiently.

I just had my computer scaned for spy-ware and things like that when the scan was finished it came up with 60 cookie threats. I had them deleted or cleaned and I notice right away that my internet connected faster. I'm hoping that was what caused the crash. But thought I would asks if those 60 cookie threats could have done that?

Thanks for this, Roger. I've never been happy with Ad-Aware, it just always leaves me with the impression that it's not catching everything. Ewido looks much better so far.

ETA: I just did a test. It took Ad-Aware 20 minutes to do a 'full scan' of my system and it came up with 2 dodgy items. I then ran Ewido. It's taken an hour to do a full scan and come up with 157 dodgy items which Ad-Aware apparently missed.

Point proven, I think. <g>


LabRat

I went to Ewido and scanned but everytime I tryed to delete the adware that was find the window would have to close because it had a problem. So I'm thinking I might need to find a anti-spywork on cd. Are their any good ones out there?

You were using the online version, right?

Did you try downloading and installing the software, and then running it on your computer?

It may just be a compatibility problem with your pc. I found that I can't keep Ewido switched on permanently because it messes up everything else. Everything runs slow, I ask for a program and it doesn't open etc etc.

So now I have it switched off - losing the resident shield protection - but it still works for scanning my system. I just switch it on when I need to scan and don't use the pc meantime. Then switch it off when the scan is complete.

Not ideal, but at least the scanner part works.

Sometimes, there are just clashes with other programs and there's nothing you can do about it.


LabRat

Yeah, I'm having that same problem with Ewido slowing everything down. I can't even open task manager after running my PC with it on for a few hours. Very irritating, especially as I like the fact that it's got a scheduler and automatic updates.

Well, darnit anyway. :p

Weirder things are happening. <g> I have Ewido set to start up when I boot up the pc, so that it does a scan first thing. Then, I intended to switch it off, to avoid the clashes I'd been experiencing.

Except...the little Ewido icon has vanished from the taskbar at the bottom of my screen. So I can't switch it off from there. And somehow, it seems, I don't need to any more. It's been running along fine and the clashes with other programs, the slowing down, etc, seems to have stopped. Strange.

Ah well, not questioning it. It means that Ewido neatly and without fuss scans my system first thing and then gets out of my way by the time the pc has fully booted up.

I like it.

Wendy, if you haven't already uninstalled it, maybe you could try running it again - see if the clashes you've been experiencing vanish in the same way.

LabRat

I haven't uninstalled it; I've just turned it off. But I'm still having problems with everything slowing down, grinding to a halt, task manager not opening etc. Had to reboot twice in as many days.

Will see if things improve...

I found a review here , which says, amongst other things:

"The monitor takes more than 7.5MB of memory, the largest of any monitor tested. It's size actually increases considerably over time - suggesting some kind of hash table is being stored in memory or there is a memory leakage problem. "

"It not only takes a lot of memory it eats up a lot of CPU cycles. You can see from the graph above that the Ewido monitor consumes few resources while the system is idling but becomes very active when you open a new program. (the hump in the graph is when the program was loaded) As you would expect, this additional CPU load slows down the time it takes a program to load. With our test PC, a 3.2GH P4, it was noticeable as a slight sluggishness. It was nothing major, just a little less snappy. However on slower PCs this could be a serious issue."

To be fair to Ewido, the review is otherwise very positive and they say at the end that a new version recently released is much better in respect of the above issues. But it might be worth checking out which version you've got, Wendy.

Yvonne

Interesting - that certainly sounds like the issues I've been experiencing with it. Thanks, Yvonne.

I do have the latest version, and the Plus one, too - just got it a few days ago from the website. Ah well, maybe I'll give it another try at running in the background and see if it settles down like Rat's did - or even test their apparently very responsive support-line.


Wendy

I use Trend Micro\'s Free Spyware Scan . However, I have to run it in Internet Explorer rather than Firefox. Between that and Ad-Aware and my Norton that also picks up spyware, I'm hoping I get it all.

They also have another program that scans for viruses as well as spyware and malware.

Update on Ewido: I uninstalled it because I was still having the same problems with the CPU slowing right down and simple operations being rendered impossible. I was being forced to reboot daily.

Even after the uninstall - done properly via add/remove programs since Ewido didn't come with its own uninstaller - I was still experiencing the same problems, just a little less bad.

Finally, last night, I spent two hours scanning with various hard-drive-cleaning products, including Windows Washer, in case Ewido is one of those programs that leaves traces in the registry. It clearly does, because my computer is now back to normal. Absolutely fine, not running slowly, not refusing to allow me to open programs or windows, not objecting when I want to right-click with my mouse etc. It's all better.

*pets computer*

As for Ewido, it may pick up more spyware than Ad-aware, but I'd recommend avoiding it like the plague. :p


Wendy