paul mcskimming Posted November 21, 2004 Report Share Posted November 21, 2004 All,if you think your phone bill is a tad higher than usual then take a closer look. I did to find 1 call lasting 13mins and costing £16.58. Seemingly I'm the victim of a "rogue dialler"....hackers /programs that can use your system Without you knowing. I'll let you know how successful I am in recouping my dosh. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For all your computer needs, spares & repairs - PC Express, Love Street, Paisley 0141-561-0323 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Abraham Posted November 21, 2004 Report Share Posted November 21, 2004 Utter pains the lot of them. I tried configuring my firewall to specifically keep the more well known of them of my system but the only real effective way (apart from updating windows) is to turn the volume up of your dialup modem so when it cuts out you hear it loud and clear and when it starts dailing again you can go into your Network connections and deal with it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For all your computer needs, spares & repairs - PC Express, Love Street, Paisley 0141-561-0323 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fatblokeonbike Posted November 21, 2004 Report Share Posted November 21, 2004 To help keep these nuisances at bay (no, not Paul and Peter), try some of the stuff here - http://www.electricwords.co.uk/software/ It's all free and incredibly useful - some I've been using for eight or nine years. None of it will fool with your system. I wouldn't be without *any* of it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For all your computer needs, spares & repairs - PC Express, Love Street, Paisley 0141-561-0323 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Macdougall Posted November 21, 2004 Report Share Posted November 21, 2004 Generally Spybot & Zonealarm will work pretty well in picking up this sort of rubbish and getting shot of it and they're also pretty straightforward to run. Ad-aware is also a good piece of software to install as it picks up some bit's and bobs Spybot doesn't. There's also AVG/Grisoft anti-virus which can be downloaded. Zonealarm has a free trial of the "Pro" version on the go at the moment which includes a cache cleaner to clear out temp files which is pretty useful as well. All of this stuff is free as well and has free updates as well. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For all your computer needs, spares & repairs - PC Express, Love Street, Paisley 0141-561-0323 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fatblokeonbike Posted November 22, 2004 Report Share Posted November 22, 2004 Yeah, well, at my site http://www.electricwords.co.uk/software/ as above, you'll find cleantemp11.zip which cleans out all those temporary files and keeps doing it after any trial period of ZoneAlarm Pro expires. Set it to run on start-up (it'll ask you about this itself) and you're off and running. If you buy AVG, it comes with a firewall; run the free version of ZoneAlarm simultaneously and you'll have conflict problems. So, one or the other, not both. Note: if you use America OnLine, you needn't actually have it running to use any non-net program, but if you do try to run any stand-alone programs from *within* AOL, all bets are off. Yooors, Iain. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For all your computer needs, spares & repairs - PC Express, Love Street, Paisley 0141-561-0323 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott D Posted November 22, 2004 Report Share Posted November 22, 2004 For AOL users AOL offers a SPYWARE download that scans your drives for suspicious programs (including irritating programs that trigger ad popups and also premium rate dialler programs like the one Paul might have experienced). Unfortunately even after blocking these programs they remain in the system registry and often restart themselves. Should I be concerned? The answer is "yes". If you have broadband then programs could easily run in the background without you noticing. Some well known programs can record your keystrokes (eg. passwords, online banking details) and transmit these to a hackers mailbox. At the least you will get irritated with popups appearing trying to sell you all kinds of rubbish. Whats the answer? Ad-aware is an excellent free utility (as mentioned above). eg. Downloaded from http://www.absey-vine.co.uk/ad-aware/ Once downloaded, logout of windows, and restart windows in SAFE mode (if I recall this involves pressing F8 during bootup). This is useful to prevent any software running at bootup, including spy software. Then install / run ad-aware or your preferred product (doing a registry/ drive scan). Since the computer has run in safemode, once you clear out all infected files your computer should be fine. If you are unsure about the classification of files labelled as suspicious (eg. they may be legitimate files) then mark them for quarantine rather than deletion. If all is well with your computer you can always delete them later (or after speaking to a techie person). As a side-effect you might notice improved performance for internet browsing. Scott ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For all your computer needs, spares & repairs - PC Express, Love Street, Paisley 0141-561-0323 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott D Posted November 22, 2004 Report Share Posted November 22, 2004 Iain asked me to clarify things for aol users.. The SPYWARE detector download Aol provides is good, however it does not check the system registry. So while ads / popups are blocked temporarily they often start running again next time you restart your machine. Thats why you need to run a registry checker like adware (from Lavasoft). Since doing this, I still run the aol SPYWARE checker periodically, and so far no new stuff has infected my machine. Scott ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For all your computer needs, spares & repairs - PC Express, Love Street, Paisley 0141-561-0323 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat3 Posted November 22, 2004 Report Share Posted November 22, 2004 I had major problems about a month ago when my pc was infected with numerous viruses, spyware, etc when I downloaded a solution for the Rubik's Cube. Due to the number of pop-up ads and sites I was redirected to my pc was barely usable for virtually a fortnight. On the plus side I had plenty of time to do the puzzle! I spent a few hours each night for over a week trying to get rid of the viruses and using a combination of Zone Alarm, Ad-aware & Spybot I finally managed it. If you don't have a firewall I would definitely install at least the free version of Zone Alarm as even if you are infected you can stop the viruses from doing even more damage while you try to get rid of them with Spybot etc. I'm not very technical but all of the programs already mentioned, including the AVG software Neil suggested, are really user friendly. Give them a try, you'll be amazed at how much crap you pick up on your pc. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For all your computer needs, spares & repairs - PC Express, Love Street, Paisley 0141-561-0323 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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