** Attention IE 5.0 (or higher) users! **

I strongly reccomend that you check out this link: Browser Parasite Checker

The following is taken from the site:

What are parasites?

¢â‚¬ËœParasite' is a shorthand term for "unsolicited commercial software" -- that is, a program that gets installed on your computer which you never asked for, and which does something you probably don't want it to, for someone else's profit.

The parasite problem has grown enormously recently, and many millions of computers are affected. Unsolicited commercial software can typically:

• plague you with unwanted advertising (¢â‚¬Ëœadware');
• watch everything you do on-line and send information back to marketing companies (¢â‚¬Ëœspyware');
• add advertising links to web pages, for which the author does not get paid, and redirect the payments from affiliate-fee schemes to the makers of the software (such software is sometimes called ¢â‚¬Ëœscumware');
• set browser home page and search settings to point to the makers' sites (generally loaded with advertising), and prevent you changing it back (¢â‚¬Ëœhomepage hijackers');
• make your modem (analogue or ISDN) call premium-rate phone numbers (¢â‚¬Ëœdiallers');
• leave security holes allowing the makers of the software -- or, in particularly bad cases, anyone at all -- to download and run software on your machine;
• degrade system performance and cause errors thanks to being badly-written;
• provide no uninstall feature, and put its code in unexpected and hidden places to make it difficult to remove.

All the parasites I currently know about are only compatible with Windows, and some only affect the Internet Explorer browser.

MB...this is exactly what my daughter has done.
I clicked on your link, but after a moment (or longer) I got the "This page cannot be displayed".

Patti

The site may be temporarily down or just busy.  Try again later.

It won't open for me either, at the moment. Between McAfee, The Cleaner, Ad-Aware, Pop-Up Stopper, Mailwasher, and Sygate Firewall, I tend to catch most baddies before they can do anything ugly.

--Mark

I received the following e-mail today:

Spy on Anyone by
sending them an Email-Greeting Card!
7udak82c2n aqy6ka3s8em11h ydlqxb1rv9ez
Spy Software records their emails, Hotmail, Yahoo, Outlook, ACTUAL Computer Passwords, Chats, Keystrokes, PLUS MORE..
1dmv6418tb9q1 cfp1s27jjc s6rsor1ut43
Check up on your SPOUSE, KIDS, or EMPLOYEES!
Follow This Link To Begin...


Along with all of the other "spy" things out there, the idea that a "friend" could send a friendly e-mail greeting and it would really be spying on you is totally shocking.

And, those two lines with all of the "junk" (letters and numbers) did not show up in the e-mail.  Those were completely blank on the screen and I was shocked when the nonsense appeared after I copied the text.  It turns out it's like our "spoiler" messages - when you move the cursor over the blank part, those numbers and letters appear.  It doesn't seem to mean anything, but it seems to be added deceptiveness from someone selling a product of deception in the first place.

I still can't get to the above link...kinda weird too.

It 'delays' before it has the message....

Patti

I still can't get to the above link...kinda weird too.

It 'delays' before it has the message....

The site is available again.

I got into the site right away. I will try to read more on it later.  It is late for me to read anything that I need to actually pay attention to 

I have been thinking about trying one these anti spyware program.

I use Norton INternet Security 2003. I am not 100% sure id that catches spyware or not. But I did see that their Internet Security 2004 states that it is an anti Spyware program. But I will not need to upgrade until March or APril of 2004.

ANyway... thank you for the link!

I just did it on mine.  Thanks tons, MB!  You're a wiz!

Of course, when you click remove, this thing comes up pleading for you not to uninstall it, saying that it doesn't do "annoying" things.  I showed it no mercy.

Gerard

I showed it no mercy.

That's the attitude! 

uuhhh....trying....uhhh.,...

what is this? (I can't even understand the first thing it's telling me I appear to be infected with...I recognize this ncase thing, but
To clean up, you can also delete the registry keys HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstall
CASE, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstallmsbb and HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftware180solutions

Okay, WHAT ARE REGISTRY KEYS???
where do I type hkey_yada yada (please tell me it's not a dos prompt)

H E L P!!!
Patti

I went to run, typed in regedit, hit okay, the hkey stuff comes up but immediately goes away......
?
Patti

Patti, the only thing I know is that "tampering" with the registry can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing - so wait for some really specific instructions!!

The one rule I know is that you should always make a backup copy of the registry before doing anything, just in case!!