All right, I have just discovered a computer crime so heinous that I'm just livid. I mean, I can barely see my keyboard for typing I'm so mad!!

Today, I logged on to the LnC Fanfic Archive to do a little catch-up Kerth reading. To my surprise, a story that I pulled up had several words highlighted in blue, indicating a link. "How odd," thought I. The words were things like "cameras" and "flowers" and "pheremones." When I clicked on the highlighted word, I was jumped to what appeared to be search result pages for things like cameras and flowers and pheremones.

Someway, somehow, the lovely story I wanted to read had been turned into one gigantic advertisement, complete with links. I opened a couple of other stories to find the same problem.

And then, the coup de grace - when I sat down to compose this post, the little bugger on my machine turned the words I was typing into those nefarious links!!! When I typed the word "flower" it converted it into a link, but there was no coding indicated in my base post that I could delete. It was completely out of my control.

I'm imagining that means that anything I post to the internet or on these boards would contain certain words converted to links even though I had never the intention of that happening, and there is no way to avoid it.

We are trying to figure out what has caused this, running umpteen types of window-washing software, but I wondered if anyone out there had ever encountered this problem before and if so, how did they solve it? It has only affected one of our two machines (thankfully), but I'm just beside myself with disgust.

If I ever get my hands on the #@$% person who's responsible for such devious ad practices...even Superman won't be able to save them.

Lynn

This is the first time I hear about something like this.... really strange. And your post isn't containing any links viewing it from my computer. I'll ask around my friends about it, some of them are REALLY computer savvy.

Julie

That sounds terribly obnoxious, Lynn!

The only comfort I can offer is that there are no links in your post on the boards; whatever weird adware you've got is only affecting your personal computer. Not that that really makes things better, but it's something.

As for cleaning it up... THe first thing that comes to mind is Windows' System Restore function. I know it's included in WinXP, because I've used it several times. I'm not sure if it's available in previous versions. But if you've only had this problem for a day, you might try restoring your system to the last checkpoint (preferably yesterday or sometime recent). In the past that's taken care of all my weird "no one at the computer helpdesk can fix it and this is a huge technology school" problems.

Anyway, it's worth trying; if it fails you won't have lost anything. (It only restores settings, it doesn't delete your documents, email, etc from the last few days). In WinXP, you can find it under Start-> All Programs-> Accessories-> System Tools-> System Restore.

Good luck!
Kaylle

I can tell you right now, it's that dreaded adware. Yes, that evil nasty software that you can get by clicking Yes on one of those "trusted software" popups on websites. Whenever you get one of those, click NO!

To get rid of it, you can try Ad-Aware (http://www.lavasoftusa.com) or SpyBot S&D (http://spybot.safer-networking.de/). I personally use Ad-Aware. SpyBot will show you all of your personal settings that you can delete, but can also get rid of specialized settings you have for particular software. Just make sure that whichever you get, run the in-software update.

Also be aware that certain adware has gotten smart and put itself into certain registry settings, so that when you uninstall it, your internet stops working. This reason is why we can no longer mention the programs at work. We're told to refer the customers to a local computer technician, so they can get it completely off. However, I'm not at work.

It's called contextual advertising. I've seen it in a couple of places and it should be relatively easy to delete. It's not a virus, it's a program that you probably downloaded bundled with another program/file. The most common one is called TopText. You should be able to search your computer and delete the file. Nothing bad will happen to your computer if you delete it. Here is one link with more info from PCWorld . I'm sure if this doesn't answer your problem, you can google "TopText" or "contextual advertising" and find plenty of helpful links.

Annie

just to warn you... adaware does work really well for many people, but i had problems with it. it kept crashing my entire computer every time i tried to run it. i looked for help on their tech support message boards and found a lot of other people who'd had the same problem. no one seemed to know why. not sure if it's an xp conflict or what. so, give it a shot, since it is a good program with a good free version, but if it causes any problems, look for something else.

(i ended up with earthlink's free spyware blocker, which came out later that week)

Paul

Paul, can earthlink's spyware blocker be downloaded to keep this from happening? Or is it something you use simply to get rid of this kind of problem?

SQD (who's curious and don't want this to happen)

I had this issue for a while, and at first it was cool, then it got annoying.

If your's is the same as mine, you can go into Control Panel, select Add/Remove Programs and uninstall it. Mine was called Top Text. Once I uninstalled it everything returned to normal.

James

Thank you, everyone, for all of the great advice. At first we installed Ad-Aware and ran that through, but although it did catch some nasty data-miner and other junk, it didn't solve the problem.

Then my husband did something - at this point we have no idea what - that disengaged our ability to log on to the internet. So for a good hour, I was in full scale panic mode.

Finally, that little snafu was fixed and he went into the Change/Remove Files function. We deleted all programs that neither of us recognized. Apparently, as some of you have pointed out, it must have been either that TopText program or something similar. Once that was cleaned up, the problem disappeared.

I think the thing that gets me the most - besides the annoying fact that my stuff was turned into links - is the downright sneaky nature of all of these adware and hijacking programs. They kidnap your system, and if you are in the least bit computer-unsavvy (as I am) you are basically screwed. I don't know if there are laws against this, but there should be. And I just feel such impotent rage that there is nothing I can do to punish such companies for this practice. GRRRRRRRR!

Thanks again for all of your help and support.
Lynn

well, congrats on getting rid of it, lynn.

you might still want to get a spyware protection program, though. it'll help keep this from happening again, and it'll also search through your browser's cookies and let you know if you have any websites tracking your web usage.

sqd, spyware blocker is an earthlink program. it's avialable free to anyone who uses earthlink as an ISP. it's basically an add-on to their standard connection software. like adaware, it can check your computer for spyware programs and cookies, let you know what's there, and, if you want, delete them for you.

i don't believe it's available to non-earthlink customers, but, as karen pointed out, there are good programs available to everyone. i just happen to use earthlink's because it works on my system and is easily available from my isp.

Paul