I have just been to the Ad-Aware site as referenced in another thread here in C&T, to learn just what the software application is about and what it does. It seems to be very well supported by folks here.

I learned there are a number of versions of the application, and then I went to their forums to see what people were saying about it. Lo and behold I found not everyone is thrilled with it. Of course I know not everyone can be happy 100% of the time. But it raised questions for me. It seems that in a number of cases it broke peoples computers and/or internet connections.

I am not a computer expert. I do not want to have to pay a computer professional to fix something that could have been averted in the first place. So, my question is: What is so good about Ad-Aware, why should it be on my computer. And, I still am not sure exactly what it is for!

Many freeware programs that rely on banner ads to make money might install code, termed ‘Spyware’, on your computer that may be considered harmful in a few different ways.

1. It can report your movements on the Internet to various databases to track your browsing habits. If that worries you then you might wish to stop that happening.

2. Such code can also be picked up from normal browsing and can result in ‘Browser hijacking’. This is where you find that another page has replaced your normal browser start page, probably full of pop-ups etc. Some of these pages can be a real nuisance and each time you close a pop-up down it spawns about four others. This can be another symptom of Spyware

3. At worst, such code may alter system files on your computer and cause various unspecified effects.

For these reasons you may wish to run a program like AdAware (there are others) to detect any files containing such code and get rid of it.

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Speaking personally, I have never had any faults or strange effects cured by running AdAware but I wouldn’t discount its usefulness. I always run it as a ‘just in case’ precaution before looking for other reasons for a fault. I’ve used the older version of the program over a period of time but all it ever picks up on are tracking cookies like ‘doubleclick’ or’ valueclick’ and a few others. I can easily weed out these myself if I want to.

If I don’t use Internet Explorer AdAware never detects anything untoward on my computer, even after weeks of browsing here there and everywhere. Maybe that’s because cookies in other browsers are stored in a single file rather than many individual ones, as is the case with IE.

The program does have a value. It does the work for you in finding and deleting tracking cookies, other Spyware and nasty bits of code. Although I’ve never had it actually cure anything that I couldn’t do myself, I’ve never had it do any harm either. Maybe I just haven’t picked up anything along the way that would have had an adverse effect when AdAware deleted it.

If you do run AdAware it will almost certainly come up with a list of things that it considers Spyware. It has to be a personal decision whether to delete them or not. All that can be said is that it is usually OK to do so.

Not being a techie means that all of the nuances of spyware deletion programs are lost on me. All I can tell you is that lurking in most computers which access the Internet are "spies." The little gremlins are down there somewhere in the bowels of our PC actually tracing and reporting our viewing habits and Web sites visited. I have used Ad-Aware, but this week was advised by my son, who is a paid techie in another city, to download spybot. It is a free and easy download and can be found at
http://spybot.eon.net.au/.

It was amazing what it found and "fixed" in my PC. For example I thought I had totally uninstalled the dreaded Hunt Bar, but lo and behold the Hunt Bar System File was still there. It had 76 problems found associated with it that spybot remedied. My son says it is the best free program of its kind that he used. Based on my recent experience, it seems apparent that he is correct. Hope it works as well for you.

Good post TW. Lavasoft, the makers of Ad-Aware, left their users without updates for about 6 months, which is not a good way to win friends. They have recently come out with a new Version 6 which is nice in that it automatically will download updates (if Lavasoft provides them). I have found a few instances where by deleting the "spyware" a program would not function. This was in some games that placed a "Timesink ad client" in my machine.
But all in all, I dont think the spyware is a big deal. In most cases, the tracking is done anonymously anyway. It is a price we have to pay for all these "free" internet sites.

I had been having a TERRIBLE time with pop-ups while using the internet. I resorted to installing pop-up stopper on my computer and using it all the time (I now only use it when I'm 'surfing'). I installed ad-aware and did what it told me to and guess what? No more annoying pop-up windows while I use the 'net!

I have just installed and run Ad-Aware v6, and the results read-
1 Processes identified
65 Registry keys identified
3 Registry values identified
59 Files identified
4 Folders identified.

My question is... Can I safely delete all of these things without bringing my computer to a shuddering halt?

It also tells me that I have 19 Running Processes. I am assuming that these are necessary programs. Am I correct?

Also, there was a message in the log that reads "Warning! WildTangent object found in memory(C:\WINDOWS\wt\updater\wcmdmgr.exe)". and another that reads ""wcmdmgr.exe"Process terminated successfully." In the Registry part of the log, this program is mentioned many, many times.

I googled 'Wild Tangent' and it is something to do with online gaming. Is it a known 'nasty'?

Don't delete registry keys or values. If you have something that says 'Alexa' that has to stay too. Files and folders can be deleted without any problems

Thanks, SG. I just reran it and found about 65 of this sort of stuff...

Quote:

---

WildTangent Object recognized!
Type : RegKey
Data :
Rootkey : HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
Object : CLSID\{083863F1-70DE-11d0-BD40-00A0C911CE86}\Instance\{ECFBE6E0-1AC8-11D4-8501-00A0CC5D1F63}

---

Is that safe to leave there? I get very wary whenever I see the word 'Registry'..

Also, another favour if I could? I have a whole swag of directories that containg 'spuninst.exe' files. Apparently they are uninstall files for Service Packs. Can I delete them?

Yep and yep. Wild Tangent has something to do with Java (I forget exactly what it does)
spuninst.exe can safely be deleted

Mate, whatever they are paying you, it is nowhere near enough! Thanks for all your help, and I owe you a beer or six..

Thanks for that info, TW. I am just curious as to how it got there- I am not really a gaming type of person..

It does seem strange in that case. The first time I came across Wild Tangent was when the grandkids wanted to play a 3D Shockwave game on the Internet. I think it was called, 'Hurtle Turtle', either that or Blasterball 2. I was prompted to install the Wild Tangent driver in order to play it. A Wild Tangent icon got installed in the Control Panel.

If you have the icon then it must have got installed at some time. Lots of sites use Shockwave for animation so maybe Wild Tangent got installed without realising it when you were asked to install Shockwave by a site.

Have a look to see if you have the icon. If not, then maybe it's somehow just a reference to Wild Tangent found by Adaware that it didn't like.

A couple of things:

Is there a listing for it in running tasks? (press CTL+ALT+DEL to see). If there is and you don't need to use it you can stop it running by unchecking the relevant tick box in the list of programs loaded at start-up (go to: Start Button, click 'Run' and type 'msconfig' into the box, click the Startup tab). The effect of this doesn't take effect until you restart the computer and is reversable if necessary.

Also, if you have a firewall you could look to see if there is permission for Wild Tangent to access the Internet. If there is you could block it. It can't do any spying then (that's if it is anyway).

Multiplayer Trivia used shockwave, maybe it came from there Ozzz if you played when it was running.
Just a thought.........

No icon, and it is not a running task. However, it shows up when I select Add/Remove programs, as both an Updater and Web Driver.

I am not overly concerned about it now, after reading previous posts, but if I uninstall both programs, will that also clean the Registry?

Blinky, I have never been able to get into multiplayer.. but maybe it loaded when I was trying to set it up. Thanks for the tip.

After hearing it talked about on a CNN program I installed Spybot S&D yesterday.

http://security.kolla.de

It found all sorts of things lurking on my computer and removed them.

In addition, I had been having a low system resource problem since I installed Norton Internet Security 2003 a few weeks ago. Spybot enabled me to find startup items I really didn't need (like a smart card feature) which were draining my computer's resources. Once I disabled them at startup I solved my low resource problem.

I think this is a really useful--and free--program to download. It contains all sorts of useful information in addition to it's main features.

Thanks, chelseabelle, I downloaded SpyBot, it's a really great program, got rid of tonnes of cursed spyware, including something from that obnoxious Gator Corporation.