Spyware messages

[Jens Vec]

Ok, so this morning my computer got these little blue boxes jumping up and down in the corner saying I have spyware, people are trying to put spyware on my computer, I'm getting spam, and whatever. I ran ad-aware, and am running Spybot, but the little box won't stop and takes me to a site about "TitanShield Anti-Spyware" when I click on it. It opens the window in IE (my default browser is Firefox) and it all just looks wierd. Is this something I need to be worried about?

EDIT: Ok, this TitanShield thing definitely looks like something bad for me. Spybot picked it up, and the site for it is opening automatically in IE. If Spybot doesn't kill this thing, what should I do?

[Jens Vec]

Ok, the problem seems to be taken care of for now. Sorry if I panicked, but I've only had this thing maybe 2 weeks and I don't want it getting killed. Is there anything more I could do to prevent this sort of thing?

[Dasquian Belargic]

Make sure that you have all the latest Windows updates. A combo of those, ZoneAlarm firewall, AVG anti-virus and a couple of spyware programs (AdAware and Spyware Doctor) keep my laptop free of any of these nuisances. I think a lot of them get buried into your registry or whatever, so sometimes erasing System Restore points before running all of the checks/fixes is necessary.

[Morgan Evanar]

Zonealarm used to be good, now zonealarm bad. :| It's very bloated these days.

[Miranda Tarkin]

give it a diuretic ^^

[Jens Vec]

What can I use in place of Zonealarm?

[Morgan Evanar]

Windows firewall.

[Jens Vec]

Ok. Well, looks like that's the default, so I should be good to go. Thanks for helping.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I'm glad your computer didn't get eaten from the inside out! ^_^;

[Dasquian Belargic]

Originally posted by Lilaena De'Ville
I'm glad your computer didn't get eaten from the inside out! ^_^;

Yes, I know the pain of that all too well, I would not wish it on anyone :(