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World Newspapers..The following sites perform roughly the same function; linking the user to local, country and regional newspapers from all over the world: SEE I like OnlineNewspapers.com a great deal; it offers a very simple road to 1,000's of international publications. The PaperBoy is an equally exceptional effort, if not better. It is produced by a lone newshound, is very comprehensive and most importantly, it looks pretty. However even this labor of love is not quite up with ABYZ News Links, when it comes to displaying 'stalker like' obsession. This site demonstrates an almost desperate devotion to the tracking down and ordering of international news sources. You now can determine the "spin" tactics. ** Keep it fair & balanced. My choice for the best sight for editorials, poll stats and cutting through the spin of both sides is ... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

I've Had it with the Adwhores and their system hijacking spyware/adware programs and infernal popups!

**** You've almost certainly encountered the ads: A dialog box pops up on your system, bearing the message "Warning! Your computer may be infected with spyware" and suggesting that you scan your computer immediately. Click it, and you often reach a Web site providing a "free spyware scanner" that finds all sorts of malware on your PC--and then offers to sell you software that will clean it all up. That's just phoney advertising and BS.

Should you buy these products? Based on my tests absolutely no! Following complaints from several Get-in2 shoppers, we tested seven heavily advertised spyware-removal tools-- MyNetProtector, NoAdware, PAL Spyware Remover, SpyAssault, SpyBlocs, Spyware Stormer, and XoftSpy--and found that none were as effective as reputable free products such as Spybot Search & Destroy or Ad-Aware by LavaSoft. A couple even installed new spyware and disabled viable competing programs..... read this article and learn how the Adwhores and advertising industry condone hijacking your system for profits.

HOW TO CLEAN AN INFECTED COMPUTER

Cleaning an infected computer today has become harder than ever. To effectively clean your system you must first learn a little about what you are trying to get rid of and what tools you need to get the job done. I'm going to try to give you some of the background, followed by the basics of getting rid of these pests.

Today there are a variety of things that can infect your computer such as viruses, worms, trojans and spyware. I refer to all of them as parasites since that word seems to best describe them. I find it best to use a multi-pronged approach to fighting parasites, so I use several software programs to find and get rid of them. Hopefully, by giving you a little of the background, you will be able to learn what tools to use and when to use them so that you may clean your computer of these parasites.

Viruses were the first computer bugs, and anti-virus (AV) software was made specifically to detect and get rid of these. Worms are a little different than viruses, which is one reason why AV software has a harder time catching them. Finally came trojan horses, usually just called trojans. These are very different than both viruses and worms. They actually take advantage of the weaknesses that are inherent in AV software. For one, most trojans actually try to hide from being detected by AV software. They also work "smarter" by creating hidden copies of themselves so that when they do get detected and cleaned, they can re-infect the computer with the hidden copy right after the AV software cleans the original infection. Basically, trojans are AV software's worst nightmare simply because AV software wasn't designed to specifically go after this type of threat. Today, AV software is much better at detecting all types of parasites than before but they will need to be redesigned and start using multiple methods if they are ever going to be effective against all parasites.

Spyware isn't a new breed of parasite. It is simply a combination of various computer exploits and they utilize various combinations of scripts, trojans and worms. Currently they take advantage of trojans the most since they are harder to detect and clean properly. Anti-spyware (AS) software was created specifically for detecting and cleaning this type of parasite, so when it comes to trojans and some worms, AS software is much better equipped to fight these than the AV software is.

First, you will need to get some software programs to help you. The following programs are what I use personally. Not only do I trust them, but they are also free for personal use. The companies that provide the free software, also provide software that they sell for use in a commercial environment..... read additional steps

Adware/Spyware or Malware is a huge problem not covered by anti-virus programs. The parasite problem has grown enormously recently, and many millions of computers are affected. I like the terms parasiteware or Scumware over Adware any day.  Be sure to read this complete section and take the steps to download my recommended detection and removal software.... all free. Join in the latest campaign against the perveyors of malware. see www.stopbadware.org to see what computer industry giants and the FTC have in store for the Adwhores in 2006.

Recommended ... http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html - LavaSoft Ad-Aware6.0 or download Spybot S&D at  http://ejrs.com/spybot/ with these nasties out there in mass ...get and use all three Get-in2 recommendations. Nifty Online spyware/Adware detector and removal too for placing a link to on your sites is.... http://www.spywareguide.com/txt_onlinescan.html ...try it for free and you will be amazed. Then jump on ZoneLabs free "ZoneAlarm" software firewall if you have broadband Internet access ....a must to quell the nasties from re-infecting your system Drive-by and bundled Unsolicited commercial Spyware/Adware software can typically: Having any of these symptoms is not necessarily the end of the world. But any combination of 3-5 of them could be cause for concern

	The homepage of your browser is changed suddenly, and you have no clue as to how it happened. This is commonly called a browser hijack, and one of the most notorious of these infections is CoolWebSearch.
	You suddenly notice an 'extra' toolbar on IE and once again you didn't install it. Toolbar infections are of a wide variety, coming in many forms and names.
	Your firewall alerts you to an unknown program trying to access the Internet. This usually means something has already gotten by your defenses and you need to take action, and in many cases most infections rarely travel alone. Another firewall indicator is that it is actually turned off by the malware. Many aggressive malwares target multiple av\anti-spyware applications.
	New shortcuts appear on your desktop or your task bar, or even your system tray that you didn't put there nor know what they are.
	New entries appear in your favorites folder that you didn't put there.
	Your computer starts acting sluggish and slow with massive CPU numbers. This could also be from any number of unrelated reasons too, so this symptom in and of itself, may not be an indication of malware problems.
	Excessive popup windows, unable to stop or close. One famous infection which had this symptom was a plague over this past summer was the Bube Trojan. It required a special, detailed fix to remove. I had the pleasure of trying to remove one of these nasty infections, and it was beyond my abilities, and I had to call in the cavalry. This was while the experts were still trying to fine tune the fix with several applications.
	If you have AdAware or Spybot S&D, should either one open, and appear for a few seconds, then disappear without scanning, more than likely, it's a variant of CoolWebSearch infection. Yes, that's right, as the popularity of these two applications is so high, the malware writers wrote code to specifically turn these two applications off if found to be present on the machine
	Every time you do a search, you wind up at the same unusual and unknown web site-search engine, or you get 1-3 pages of unrelated search results, before getting to your actual search. Typically referred to as a 'search page hijack'. This too is a common symptom of CoolWebSearch.
	There is a new program or multiple programs in the Add/Remove Programs section of your control panel. If you're lucky, they will remove via Add\Remove, but more times than not, this does not work.
	You're unable to access any of these: task manager, regedit, MSCONFIG, they just pop up and disappear. The idea behind this little trick is to prevent you from being able to access key sections of your computer for removal of the infection. Usually a special registry merge is required just to fix this part.
	Your desktop has been changed to a web page or some type of notice that your PC is infected and you cannot change it.  There are several alleged anti-spyware applications which actually do this. Imagine, claiming to remove infections, when in fact they cause them!! The most noted are PSGuard, RazeSpyware, World AntiSpy and SpyTrooper.
	You get a lot of returned emails from people you don't know. This could be a sign of your machine being a zombie.

All the parasites I currently know about are only compatible with Windows, and some only affect the Internet Explorer browser. Try the new Mozilla Firefox browser which I use daily now to over come the attacks on Microsofts Internet Explorer by the spyware/adware browsers hijackers. Also run Trend Micro's "HouseCall" online virus scan as many of the spyware/adware perps have now bundled real computer backdoor trojan horse viruses with their system destroying adware. These virus bundles often block Norton and popular Adware removal tools from working or getting updates ...as their first infestation step! If you need a great FREE anti-virus program for all Windows operating systems then I'd recommend Anti-Virus Software from Grisoft AVG, you can find it at [free.grisoft.com]

cont'd... HOW TO CLEAN AN INFECTED COMPUTER

First you will want to download each of the above programs and then install them. After you install them, you MUST update them so you will have the latest protection. There is one small exception: CWShredder is a stand-alone program that doesn't need to be installed, but you do need to have it check for an update to ensure that you have the latest version. If you don't update these programs and you are infected with the latest parasites, you will not be able to effectively detect and clean them from your computer, so remember to update, update, update.

Since spyware is a bigger problem today than viruses, and spyware is typically harder to find and get rid of, I suggest to start looking for spyware first. I also use the different AS software packages in a specific order so that I go after the tougher problems first and the easiest ones last.

Turn off System Restore

WinME and WinXP have a cool feature called System Restore. It is used to restore your computer to an earlier configuration in case of a problem. The only problem is that it wasn't made with parasites in mind, and often it can't tell the difference between an infected file and a good file, so it might automatically restore an infected file also if it had been in a protected area, effectively re-infecting your computer. Because of this, it is recommended to turn off System Restore before you test, and when you're done, turn it back on so you are still protected from standard computer problems.

For WindowsME

1. Click Start, Settings, and then click Control Panel.
2. Double-click the System icon. The System Properties dialog box appears.

NOTE: If the System icon is not visible, click "View all Control Panel options" to display it.

3. Click the Performance tab, and then click File System.
4. Click the Troubleshooting tab, and then check Disable System Restore.
5. Click OK. Click Yes, when you are prompted to restart Windows.

For WindowsXP -NOTE: These instructions assume that you are using the default Windows XP Start Menu and have not changed to the Classic Start menu. To re-enable the default menu, right-click Start, click Properties, click Start menu (not Classic) and then click OK.

1. Click Start.
2. Right-click the My Computer icon, and then click Properties.
3. Click the System Restore tab.
4. Check "Turn off System Restore" or "Turn off System Restore on all drives"
5. Click Apply.
6. When turning off System Restore, the existing restore points will be deleted. Click Yes to do this.
7. Click OK.

Run Disk clean-up This actually comes with Windows and has been installed by default since Windows 98. You can find it by clicking the Start Button and then going to Programs / Accessories / System Tools / Disk Clean-up. I recommend selecting all of its options except the ones for Office Setup Files and Compress Old Files if you have them. While you may select those if you wish, they aren't as important. This will clean up all of the temporary files so your testing will go faster, and may also delete any spyware that may hiding there if the spyware isn't already running.

Run Windows Add/Remove Open the Windows Control Panel and run the Add/Remove Programs applet. More and more many of todays spyware will place an Uninstall item in this list in order to look more like a real program. Browse through this list and remove suspicious items that you don't recognize.

Run Ad-Aware Next This handles the next toughest types the best. When it finally presents you with the list of parasites it has found, put a check mark in the box next to the ones you want to get rid of, I suggest checking them all. If you want to select all, just right-click your mouse on the boxes to get the options menu, and left-click on Select All. If it says it can't get rid of a problem right now, it will ask if you want to run it again after you restart your computer, answer yes and restart your computer so it may test again.

Run Spybot Next When you run it, it will automatically select all the spyware that it finds, if there is something you don't want to get rid of for some reason, deselect it and then let Spybot fix all of the rest of the problems that it finds. This program also will ask to restart your computer so it can test again if it has problems removing something, so let it.

Now Run The Grisoft AVG, Norton or Trend Micro's online antivirus Program

Have it scan for the remaining parasites that the others may have missed.
If you found any parasites, you need to restart your computer so you can test everything again. There are times that after cleaning certain parasites, you will need to test again because something may have been hidden earlier by the infection. So repeat this process of testing and restarting until you find no more parasites.

TIP: Run the tests in Safe Mode ...If you've run across a very tough one to remove, try running all of the tests again in Safe Mode. Almost all versions of Windows will go into Safe Mode by restarting they computer and before you ever see a Windows screen, start tapping repeatedly the F8 key, if you started soon enough, you should be presented with a basic menu that you can arrow up or down to the Safe Mode and then hit the [Enter] key.

These procedures should have cleaned most causes of infection that you will find. Yes I said MOST because there are some infections that are very hard to detect and remove. Generally, if you have one of these, you will need the assistance of an expert to help you get rid of it.

When you believe you are finished, remember to turn System Restore back on if you had turned it off. I recommend testing for parasites as often as you can, probably at least once a month if not more. The sooner you catch them, the less damage they can do to your computer, and the less chance of a hacker finding your sensitive information such as checking account info, passwords, etc.

IMS Webmaster Mike

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