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Spyware Ate My Browser

Spyware

NORM ON TECH

Ever wrestled an oily viper through a one-way mirror? This past weekend I spent the better part of six hours sweating it out on the blind side of my monitor, trying to regain control of Internet Explorer from a wiley beast -- and I lived to tell the tale. Here is that tale.

It turns out that some strain of spyware called "barbuddy.c" -- a variant of Bargain Buddy -- had installed itself into my system. Whenever I searched with Internet Explorer I ended up on a Bargain Search Page made to look like Google. No matter what I typed into the search box, the Bargain Search page appeared. It was like driving a car, but someone else had remote control.

Spyware Solutions All my Open Source buddies tell me to stop using Internet Explorer and start using Firefox. Of course, I already use Firefox for most of my browsing, but there are sites where Internet Explorer is the only browser that will work. LIfe totally without IE is still not an option.

So I had to fix this very annoying little problem. I had felt well-protected with the latest Microsoft updates loaded, virus protection loaded, and a spyware program loaded.

First I ran a manual scan of my computer using virus software program by Symantec which didn't yield anything. That program had cost me $50 and claimed to also capture spyware. Nope. So I uninstalled Norton and installed a trialware version of PCcillen by Trend Micro. I ran a virus scan with my new software and, lo and behold, it found the problems -- but couldn't fix them.

Next I searched for anything that could return Internet Explorer to me. I came up with two packages with free trials. Microsoft just bought this company -- Giant -- and released their anti spyware solution under the Microsoft name as a beta Spy Sweeper from a company called Webroot. I loaded both of these into my system. They both found more spyware and spyware cookies, but my problem persisted.

So I went to an old standby -- Spybot . Spybot didn't find the same problems that PCcillen found, but it found about 40 more that I was unaware, ones that the other "pay for" software missed. So I fixed those and continued in pursuit of a clean system. Arghh. Still no luck getting Internet Explorer back.

The last thing I did that successfully got Internet Explorer Back was to install Spyware Blaster. This prevents spyware from taking control of Internet Explorer. Whew. 6 hours GONE. Still, this was better than re-installing everything on my system.

It was time to check the Internet to find out what caused this mess. A lot of these strains of adware, it appears, insert themselves directly into the operating system making it very difficult to repair. Even after all my repair work, the adware was still there.

Here's what I learned for a long day of oily-snake wrestling -- money does not always buy happiness. You can throw all the dough you want at the latest and greatest programs, but only old-fashioned hard work wins out. Each new fix requires new programs, research and sweat. In the end, the software that saved the day were those that requested, not flat fees, but only donations.