another virus question

[snoozer]

I know there are a bunch of topics about computer virus on MJ's, but for soem reason when I do a search on 'virus' it pulls up notihng.

Anyway, here is the issue that is happening. My Aunt (not too computer literate), is having issues with her explorer. Unfortunately, I can only go by what she tellls me over the phone. She say whenever she opens up windows explorer a bunch of the screens pop up (like 15-20 or them). They all just open up blank. I wanted to check 2 things...

1) Has anyone ran into this problem and fixed it?
2) What is the latest virus removal software out there? (preferably free as it will be easy to get her to download it)


Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[bsucards]

sounds like spyware and not a virus,

Microsoft has a new anti-spyware tool, but the standard products are ad-aware by Lavasoft and also Spybot are good products.

What version of windows does she have.

 

[danmurphy jr]

Never heard of a blank pop-up. Of course, you are getting the info second hand.
1/ Who is the ISP? If it's a freebie or a cheapie, that would contribute
2/ Who has the homepage? Yahoo toolbar provides blockers. She may have authorized a mickey mouse H/P. More later.

 

[snoozer]

she said 98, but I would swear when I was there a few months ago, it was 2000

 

[snoozer]

pretty sure she is using AOL. I think the pages are blank because she is using dial-up and with that many pages trying to load at once, it just locks up

 

[The Boys]

I have Norton at work and Macfee at home, there both excellent. Had them for years now and never any trouble.

 

[danmurphy jr]

The operating system shouldn't matter. AOL should have it's own pop=up blocker. Norton or anyone else won't detect them unless they were caused by a known contaminator. Does she have Norton or the like? Commercial spywares seem to attract more than they cure.
Push come to shove, call AOL and complain, they don't like to lose customers.

 

[danmurphy jr]

There's also a good chance that it'll go away by itself. Be patient and close them one at a time, counting them to make sure they don't repeat. You can't tell because the are blank.

 

[DBLMUTZ]

send her this http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5

I ran into the pop up ordeal once,They were'nt blank,To this day,I still don't have a clue,but it took out my pc,Somehow my protection was shut off :scared I was unaware of this,When i clicked on this 1 site,there was a bombardment of pop ups,At first i tried to click them off :mj07: that was a joke the more i clicked the faster they came,so i just pulled the plug,Than with great fear i replugged and energized my modem only to arrive at a bright blue empty screen,The flucker wiped me out :cursin: had to start from scratch restore disk whole bit,Anyways send her this,I installed this after restore never had a problem,I have comcast and have switched to their protection but Norton worked just fine