Bloody adware!

[Mon Ami Mate]

I've got this nasty persistent infection. I've tried every recommended remedy (AdAware, Spybot, Norton) - they can't seem to find whatever is causing it and still it persists. It flashes up ads for large corporates (Samsung, Sun Microsystems) and it's irritating the crap out of me. Anybody have any ideas?

[rich 36]

Untill last week, i had pop-ups all the time, i re-installed a free 30 day spyware sweeper, and that did
it.
the first time i put on spybot, incidentalty, it failed to sort it!

[Mon Ami Mate]

It seems that the thing is called Xlime Offer Optimizer. A quick Google search suggests that this is a recognised bastard to remove. Any assistance in getting rid of this thing would certainly lead to a debt of beer!

[tvrforever]

have you tried the latest SE version of AdAware?

[rich 36]

I havent' been visited by this plague yet, but i hope (and will let you know otherwise)if i do, as i understand two filters are not an option to run together, which might mean spyware was out,

[coopergreen]

Have you tried ccleaner? Good program for clensing...

[Plotloss]

Malc, do you have the latest signature file update for Ad-Aware?

[Mon Ami Mate]

Plotloss said:

Malc, do you have the latest signature file update for Ad-Aware?

I do, and it hasn't touched it. I've just downloaded something called Spy Sweeper which one of my designers has just recommended. It's working away in the background and has already identified a shedload of things that AdAware hadn't found. I'll let you know how it progresses.

[Plotloss]

Bugger.

Usually with the latest updates either AdAware or Spybot will catch everything.

[Mon Ami Mate]

Well, Spy Sweeper has just finished and seems to have deleted all sorts of nasty things I wasn't aware of. You'll find it at www.webroot.com - and my first impressions are that it is highly recommended.

[__LEE__]

Mon Ami Mate said:

Well, Spy Sweeper has just finished and seems to have deleted all sorts of nasty things I wasn't aware of. You'll find it at www.webroot.com - and my first impressions are that it is highly recommended.

Yep, by far the best Anti-Spyware program on the market and it also picks up Adware stuff as well.

BTW its worth paying for the full version about £15-17 quid ($30), as it picks up a lot more and gets updated daily. When I paid for the full version it found another 20 programs 6 of which were key-loggers sending emails of what has been typed daily to annonymous email addresses.

[stumartin]

__LEE__ said:

Yep, by far the best Anti-Spyware program on the market and it also picks up Adware stuff as well. BTW its worth paying for the full version about £15-17 quid ($30), as it picks up a lot more and gets updated daily. When I paid for the full version it found another 20 programs 6 of which were key-loggers sending emails of what has been typed daily to annonymous email addresses.

From your own email address or had it found some way of emailing independently? That's scary.

[_dobbo_]

Just don't use IE - you can then pretty much gaurantee that 90% or more of the problems wont effect you!

[__LEE__]

stumartin said:

__LEE__ said: Yep, by far the best Anti-Spyware program on the market and it also picks up Adware stuff as well. BTW its worth paying for the full version about £15-17 quid ($30), as it picks up a lot more and gets updated daily. When I paid for the full version it found another 20 programs 6 of which were key-loggers sending emails of what has been typed daily to annonymous email addresses. From your own email address or had it found some way of emailing independently? That's scary.

Yep the keyloggers used independant ways of mailing back the results and I was using FireFox from the start!.

[stumartin]

Mon Ami Mate said:

Well, Spy Sweeper has just finished and seems to have deleted all sorts of nasty things I wasn't aware of. You'll find it at www.webroot.com - and my first impressions are that it is highly recommended.

But did it get rid of this 'Xlime'??!

[FourWheelDrift]

stumartin said:

But did it get rid of this 'Xlime'??!

http://forums.maddoktor2.com/index.php?showtopic=1670

[Mon Ami Mate]

stumartin said:

Mon Ami Mate said: Well, Spy Sweeper has just finished and seems to have deleted all sorts of nasty things I wasn't aware of. You'll find it at <a href="http://www.webroot.com">www.webroot.com</a> - and my first impressions are that it is highly recommended. But did it get rid of this 'Xlime'??!

Fingers crossed. Seems OK at the moment...