Smashing Down...

...the stupid pop-up ads that have recently taken over my laptop. Two days ago I did a search for lyrics for a Winnie-the-Pooh song. When I went to a lyric page, a window popped up warning that my virus software stopped a trojan from infecting my machine.

I immediately ran my virus scan which found nothing. NOTHING! But I keep getting pop-ups. I followed this by running my spyware programs, AdAware and Spybot. They both found tons of problems which they fixed. However something else must have slid in under the radar. I am still getting pop-ups. I am having to run both spyware programs multiple times a day and each time they find 5-30 things. I went into my Add/Remove Progams utility and removed a handful of suspect programs. Still being buried by pop-ups. So right now, I am running Stinger which is a utility from MacAfee that detects and removes viruses. Hopefully it will find something. I really don't want to have to reformat my hard drive.

Thankfully they are not for dirty picture sites (I didn't want to use the P word since I ever want to be googled for it). The ads are for cell phone ring tones, casinos, American Express and (HA) spyware removal software.

So, if anyone is looking for me this weekend...you'll probably find me under the pile of pop-up ads over there in the corner.