For the people who know about the internet

keydates

This is completely off-topic, not really a rant, nothing to do with cycling, etc. etc.

Anyway, as of the past several days, I have been having a problem with the internet. I turn on the computer in the morning, and try to get onto IE. Sometimes I manage to get to the homepage, other times it will say "This page cannot be displayed"/ "cannot find server." Refreshing doesn't do anything, nor does exiting and trying again. Obviously, I can't access any other site.
So I restart the computer, and this time, I get to the homepage...but I can't go anywhere else, and when I exit and reenter IE, I can't reach the homepage.
Restart again, and this time I can get to another site (say, this one) aside from the homepage. But when I try to go to another page...well, you get the idea.
Finally, after several restarts, shutdowns, complete shutdowns (turn off power supply to computer and internet) and restarting, the internet actually works. For that day. Repeat the next day.
I've run AdAware and Spybot, and neither have seemed to work. I have a cable connection. Any ideas?

PS: On a related note, something related to www.popuppers.com has gotten onto my computer (I've never visited the site, yet it appears daily on my history) and, as the name suggests, sends popups. Neither the above anti-spyware programs have worked to get rid of it.

I wouldn't suggest going to the above link in case that gives you the same problem.

Stickboy

Switch to Mozilla or FireFox for your browser and your popups will cease to exist as well as any malicious software that some sites try to install when you visit them.

You'll be amazed at how clean your machine is once you switch. I run AdAware and Spybot once a week. When I used IE it would find all sorts of things. Since I started using Mozilla/FireFox I don't have the cookie/spyware problem I used to.

Shan

__________________
Cycling For Cancer

keydates

I do have a firewall (Zone Alarm). Just updated Ad-Aware, will see how that goes. Spybot was fully updated when I ran it yesterday.

Zapper, could you please explain what you mean by "network activity." Sometimes I do get popups when I'm away that aren't blocked...the most common being something from addymix (or something like that), z1.adserver, or ntsearch .com.

Scotty_Dog

Make sure your spyware programs are up to date.

Also run a dedicated, up to date, anti-virus program and perform a full system scan. I've had a virus act very similar to what you have described, which was not seen by Zone Alarm Pro, AdAware, or Spybot.

I've had very good success using the free anti-virus program AVG by Grisoft. Link below.

http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php

crummy_verses

Hello All,

A newbie to cycling, I'm considering a Dawes introductory bike for $295 (sounds like a good deal for a new bike). It has a seemingly nice feature: shifter and brake lever are in one unit, so you can shift and/or brake without moving you hand position. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? It sounds like it could be an added complication thus requiring more frequent maintenance.

Any advice or comments on either Dawes or the shifter/brake feature would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Keith in St. Louis

P.S. I didn't know how to post this without replying to a previous post.

jhuskey

Try LAVASOFT free download. It should remove the spyware but you would need to buy their version to get real time protection for the future.

__________________
Whenever I can't get excited about riding I just fantasize about someone else's bike.

keydates

I have the free version of Lavasoft (AdAware 6.0). And Spybot. Though AdAware did detect more items, it hasn't seemed to fix the problem.

keydates

I've run AVG, and it's found a number of viruses, or, more specifically, trojans. The problem seems to be that once it gets to the Automatic healer, the program seems to freeze up. The status bar doesn't move, etc. etc. Is it supposed to take this long (I had 20+ files infected)?

I suppose I'll give it one more try tonight, but it takes so long and I can't do anything else on the computer while it's running.

Beastt

It seems like everyone is probably on the right track with suspecting spyware/adware as the culprit. I've cleansed a number of computers for other people and found that a sweep with a series of different tools seems to be the best way to get most of the nastiest stuff off the system.

I use Ad-Aware, Spybot Search & Destroy, Spy Sweeper and Pest Patrol. The last, Pest Patrol, is probably the most comprehensive but can also scan for many other types of files that aren't malicious as far as your computer goes so be certain to configure it to find only what you want to get rid of. If you get version 4.0, either home or corporate, make sure to do an upgrade and always go through the Options tab and configure it to look only for those types of files you're concerned about.

The last system I worked on was so bad that internet access had become impossible. I ran Ad-Aware which found nothing. Then I put Spybot to the task and again found nothing. Spy Sweeper found a couple of culprits lurking about and removed them. Then I fired up Pest Patrol and it declared the computer clean. Obviously it wasn't so I upgraded Pest Patrol and ran another scan. It found 73 installed components. It removed all but 4 on the first sweep and got the rest the second time around. After that the system ran fine.

As a precaution I also installed Startup Control Panel which is a free download available via several sites and then added Startup Monitor, another small, free application. The first allows you to see what applications are registered to start with Windows and deselect any you would rather not have start automatically. The second program, Startup Monitor runs in the background and only makes its presence known when an application attempts to register itself to start with Windows. When that happens, you'll see a window alerting you to the application making the attempt and you can decide whether or not you want to allow the change. I'm also a strong believer in a little search and replace utility which acts as a proxy for your browser called, Proxomitron. This is another free download and installs fairly simply but does require that you change your proxy settings for the browser. It stops pop-ups, animations, banner ads and a whole host of other annoyances, but all of the filters are user switchable. With these three tools and the spyware scanners I mentioned, you should be able to keep your system fairly free of obtrusive software.