Yesterday, I ran my spybot and my ad aware, and they found many more bugs than usual, which they either quarantined or removed. Now up till then, there had been nothing actually wrong with the computer, and since then my popup blocker (Yahoo) has stopped working, and some of my settings have been changed, for instance I no longer need to log in when I boot up, but get logged in straight away (quite useful actually), and also my dial-up box no longer comes up automatically when I need it.
I doubt this could be a coincidence as all the events happened the minute I finished running the programs. Is it actually possible that by losing bugs it may also knock out a few useful settings as well? Luckily nothing major happened, but if I was carrying maybe 40 items of spyware with no ill effects, and then had all sorts of hiccups (including the dreaded multiple popup experience where it creates endless explorer windows in a few seconds) afterwards maybe it's not always worth running till something is actually wrong first? Has this happened to anyone before or have I set a precedent?

Much of what spyware programs find when you're using Internet Explorer are to do with tracking cookies. These would probably account for a good few of the 40 items you mention. They don't actually do your computer any harm but they do track your Internet movements in order to target you with ads. As such, they are seen as spyware by the programs.

It seems as if a bit more than that was found though. Spyware programs can see additional toolbars (such as the Yahoo one containing the pop-up blocker) as spyware and remove it, or some of its functions. Quite often, 'Cannot find' error messages can plague a computer because a spyware program has not completely removed all of what it saw as spyware. This could be the kind of thing that happened to stop the pop-up blocker working. I can only offer this as a theory though because I don't use IE or have the Yahoo blocker.

Another area of concern is that because the blocker was not operational, you got multiple pop-up Windows. This shouldn't happen on a healthy computer. It suggests that there may be something causing this and the pop-up blocker was merely hiding some malware when it worked OK. That's something that really needs sorting out.

The actions Spybot and AdAware take should be reversible by using the back-ups they create. You could also use a Restore Point to go back to a time before the troubles occurred. I know Spybot creates one before deleting anything.

If that works, you could run AdAware and SpyBot again but this time, don't delete anything that could be to do with the pop-up blocker (remember however, that the pop-up blocker could only be masking a basic problem). Regarding the dial-up. Did the list of things found contain anything about a dialer?



I think you should run spyware programs even if you have no ill-effects on the computer. They are all about making you aware of anything nasty running in the background that you otherwise wouldn't know about.

I'm beginning to develop quite a bit of faith in Microsoft AntiSpyware (only in the beta stage at present). It runs in the background actively monitoring all kinds of things. It certainly seems as if it would be a good program for IE users.

Thanks Martin, I suspect all freeware should come with an optional IT degree for all the twists and turns involved! I think it's explained what must have happened, though I had a few nasties like people finder and SahAgent, as well as tracking cookies, which I could have kept rather than deleted when debugging. It's running reasonably smoothly now, and though I deleted and reinstalled the Yahoo toolbar (the new one has its own spyware programme as well) it still doesn't stop popups, but I'll keep working on that one. I reset the dial-up box, and I'll keep the instant log-in as it's a lot quicker than before.