Argh, pop-ups! Why am I suddenly having lots of unwanted ads appear while I browse?

[castille]

They are driving me insane.

They are usually related to the page I'm looking at (eg loans when I'm checking my bank account, Vertbaudet when browsing for kids' clothes...) Does that mean spyware? My laptop has security software so surely this shouldn't be happening?

More to the point, how can I stop them?

[castille]

Please? Any geeky types about?

[brokenrecord]

Hopefully someone will be along soon who knows, but a friend was telling me about having great difficulty getting rid of somthing which loaded itself when their teenage son updated some website he used. It sounds similar.

I'll keep an eye on this thread and ask them more if no-one else answers.

[brokenrecord]

TBH was only half listening, but I think he said something about having to find a page with a box to tick to not get the ads, but it was hard to find.

[MyPumpkinDsHappyHalloweenBday]

castile, ours was th same, geekers willbe around later to help you.

dh has to empty laptop and re-install, there has got to be an easy way i am sure.

bump them later.

[onager]

There are spyware type things that act like that. Install Spybot and that will find them.

Oh and don't panic if spybot claims to have found 100s of evil things. It includes cookies in that which are technically evil, but not seriously.

[onager]

On a general note all PCs get messed up eventually no matter how careful you are. Sometimes you can remove problem programs and fix others, but one day you have to reinstall or buy another computer.
If you then save a disk image while it's working right you can simply copy it back when things go wrong.

[castille]

Oh don't say that onager! Our desktop has just packed up and we can't replace my laptop too!

If it is spyware, why aren't Avast and Windows Defender doing anything about it?

[onager]

Oh I wasn't meaning to worry you. Spybot looks for things that most antivirus software don't. I don't really know about Windows Defender.
The popup things are not terribly unusual and I'm sure you will be able to remove that.

Some things are not automatically considered evil by antivirus software. For example you might have wanted to see lots of adverts for things so you could buy them. It's the same with all these toolbars you are asked to install. Some might even be useful a bit. Most are a pain, but they don't count as viruses

[brokenrecord]

Google 'pop up ads facebook' or similar and there are lots of references to something like this.

[castille]

Ok have done that. If I'm understanding it right my pooter has adware. Is there any free and easy way of zapping it? Will Spybot do it?

[onager]

Spybot will list it and ask if you want it removed basically.

[onager]

of course some of it may be in add/remove programs and can be simply uninstalled. But some make it hard on purpose.

[brokenrecord]

No. I think there is a box to uncheck somewhere - I just didn't read all the entries. Will ahve a quick look....

[brokenrecord]

Well I can't find anything about it, so hopefully spybot can remove it.

[castille]

OK thanks for looking

Am downloading spybot right now...

[castille]

Well I installed and ran Spybot, and it found and deleted all sorts of things so thanks for the tip, it was obviously necessary

BUT I'm still getting pop up ads

Any other ideas?

[onager]

I'm surprised that didn't sort it out. If you're on XP you have a built in popup blocker. It's not very good, but you might want to make sure it's on.

Control Panel - Internet Options and on the Privacy tab tick the popup blocker box if it isn't already.

You could also run Control Panel - Add/remove programs and look through the list. You could post the name of anything you don't recognise.

When you're looking at webpages do you have any extras/addons on the toolbars at the top. A special search bar perhaps, anything that might have been added later.

I'll have a think what else and maybe others will have suggestions too. Other people must have got the same thing if it's going around.

[castille]

Thanks for being so patient and helpful onager!

Yes I'm running XP and the popup blocker is on. I've got the Google toolbar, whose popup blocker is also on, but no other add-on toolbars.

There are only 2 things I don't recognise in my programs list, and they are:

DMX update
Favorit

Is that any use?

[retiredgoth]

....try downloading another browser. Explorer (especially older versions) is prone to pop-ups and a variety of other undesirable things.

Firefox is the most commonly used, but Opera is equally good. Just download them for free from the net. Both have much more effective pop-up blockers, and Opera in particular will be less open to spyware and the like.

[retiredgoth]

give it a try!

[castille]

Ah I've got Firefox already, I'll try using that and see...

[GentleGarotter]

or try this. Remember to temporarily allow the page by clicking the little snake in the bottom right hand of your page.

[castille]

Just switched to Firefox and it's about a squillion times faster than Internet Explorer! FAB!

Will read more about the noscript thing if it doesn't solve the popup problem, thanks GentleGarotter

[brokenrecord]

I will also ask my friend what problem they had and what her dp did about it when I see her at school.

[castille]

That would be great brokenrecord, thank you