pop-up porn - how to stop?

[amheck]

Hi group,

I have POW, which stops annoying pop ups pretty well. The problem I seem to be having now is that porn ads now pop up on my computer randomly. Sometimes they wait 30 minutes, sometimes more. It seems though, whenever I leave my computer and come back a while later, there's a new window open with porn. Does anyone know how I can stop this, or find the program that's doing this? It's not like I've been to a web page that prompts the pop-up to open.

Thanks,
Aaron

 

[skyking]

Install and run ad-aware. youve got some nasty spyware-type stuff going on there. Ad aware is free and easy, and if the problem persists, I'm sure others can recommend trojan and virus scanning procedures to clean up your computer.

 

[bacillus]

if you're running xp then disable messenger in services

 

[ProviaFan]

Get Ad Aware and run it, like skyking mentioned. And stop visiting porn sites. That should help.

 

[IdahoB]

Just think of the changes the Internet has wrought. Before the net, could you have envisaged all the geeks of the world coming together in order to stop an endless flow of pornography? Staggering, it really is. Brings a tear to my eye.

 

[amheck]

IdahoB, you do have a very ironic, but valid point.

All, I tried using Ad Aware, and actually removed everything that it came up with. I rebooted and these things still seem to pop up. Can anyone elaborate anymore on stopping the services in Win XP, i.e. how I do this and what else this will affect on my system?

Is this my next best course of action?

Aaron

 

[IdahoB]

Originally posted by: amheck
IdahoB, you do have a very ironic, but valid point. All, I tried using Ad Aware, and actually removed everything that it came up with. I rebooted and these things still seem to pop up. Can anyone elaborate anymore on stopping the services in Win XP, i.e. how I do this and what else this will affect on my system? Is this my next best course of action? Aaron

Heh, thanks - I'm English so I can't help it.

I've found TweakXP's ad blocker to be very effective, actually. It is particularly good at porn blocking, although it uses a somewhat violent approach, it just has an enormous list of regular porn pop-ups and then kills anything from the address, so if you're, ahem, legitimally looking for porn, it can stop that too

 

[skyking]

The content is most likely not on your computer; some nasty bit of programming is starting up IE and requesting the page. There are more robust trojan scans, or so I have heard. I personally have no experience with them. I'd treat this like a trojan, and search out one of those security scans.

 

[Silent1]

you can also try phoenix, has a built in popup blocker and you can add sites you want popups from.
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/phoenix-release-notes.html

 

[MaxFusion16]

format your hard drive and stop going to porn sites would certainly do it.

 

[CSFM]

Originally posted by: jliechty
Get Ad Aware and run it, like skyking mentioned. And stop visiting porn sites. That should help.

Stop visiting porn sites!!!!!!! WHAT, WHAT, WHAT!

Why else would he have the internet on....

(I am being facetious)

CSFM

 

[EmperorRob]

Make sure you don't have anything added in your Add/Remove programs that you don't remember. Wild Tangent Games is a sneaker I had to remove from my machine at work the other day. Also quit using IE.

 

[stebesplace]

To take the messenger service offline. . .

Start -> Control Panel -> Administration Tools -> Services.

Within services, scroll down about half way to 'Messenger'

Disable this service, and go into the properties and make sure you uncheck the 'Start up with windows' box.

Reboot, and see if that will help.

Are these porn ads command messenger boses? or windows explorer boxes minus the address bar and buttons etc?

-Steve

 

[IdahoB]

Er... confused - are you talking about Windows messenger? If you are, then it has nothing to do with the messenger item in the services list.