A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Banter Hall Ask Mr. Gremelin My laptop at school

has a window that's popping up all the time. It just started this afternoon. It's Pro Anti-spyware 2009 and says that the disable feature doesn't work since this is just a warming. I have to keep moving this window in front of it. I've turned my computer off, looked for it in programs, tried to search it out to remove it but can't find it. It's very aggravating. Every time I move from one forum topic to another it pops back up and asks "Do you want to continue unprotected." How can I get this off my computer? There is an "x" on my toolbar that is this Pro Antispyware 2009 icon but it can't be deleted.

This is about the nastiest little bug around. They insist you need to buy their protection to protect your computer from people like them. I was in bestbuy and someone in front of me was asking the geek squad what to do about it. It was going to cost $200 to bring it in and get rid of it.
I actually got this too for a while. II ran my different spyware programs (free) like crazy until it finally got snagged and disappeared.
Hopefully someone will come along (Mr. Gizmo) and help you out.

It's a virus nagging so you buy its "cleaner"; just go download Spybot Search and Destroy

There are plenty of removal guides on Google.

thanks guys. This is my school computer so I guess I need to let them know.

My friend works at a computer shop, and this is his reccomendations: all free and I use them too!

Antivirus- AVG Free Edition OR Avast Antivirus. (only 1 antivirus per computer!) Make sure they are set for Automatic updates!

Anti-spyware - Spybot Search & Destroy, Malwarebytes. (use both, you can have more than one of these on your comp)

Auslogics Disk Defragmenter, works better than the Windows disk defrag and is faster, makes your computers performance stay fast.

CCleaner & Cleanup- removes junk files and temp files from your computer, also keeps it running fast.

HD Tune- shows the temperature of your computer.

1- Run a full Antivirus scan ONCE a week, be sure to be off the Internet when your run it, and clear internet cookies out before the scan as well. CCleaner will clear cookies out for you.
2- Run Antispyware full scans every 2 weeks. These pick up stuff your Antivirus doesnt, which can be just as bad.
3- Do Disk Defrag ONCE a month. Also do Disk Cleanup ONCE a month.

Any questions how to do these just ask me. :)

I would advise against AVG, never been a fan. Avast however does have my recommendation.

I tried Malware bytes professional, it's worthless, half the stuff it flagged where legit programs that matched a signature; spybot however, never had any problems.

As for a defrag, if you're going to go with something other than the default windows, I'd go with Diskeeper.

Can't really comment on ccleaner or hdtune; however most users aren't going to care about their hd temp, nor know what do do with it, or what is "normal"; so it's not really useful to most.

You can set your antivirus to run automatically, as a full scan, on a schedual within most programs; I would advise you do it at a time your computer will be idle and on (in this day in age I encourage users to have energy saving on their computers vs just keeping them on 24/7).

As for defrag, most defrag tools can run when your system is idle; so you won't have to run them manually.

As for anti spyware, I will agree it should be run often, but generally recommend users run at least once a month.

Only reason I prefer AVG over Avast is that it uses less RAM. I have used Avast before and it's great, but again the less RAM running the better IMO. Malwarebytes never gave me any issues, to each his own I guess.

I installed HD Tune on my older computer, because it felt very hot, so when I checked the temp I realized over 100 is not normal. Turns out all I needed to do was put on new thermal paste, and that fixed that, but I guess most people wont do that themselves you know.

thank you.