Zestyfind and other Persistent Popups

[TomAJohnson]

I have Norton Antivirus, Spybot, Adaware, ZoneAlarm (the free version), PopUp Stopper (from Panicware, free), AND a hardware firewall. I am running Windows 2000.

Nonetheless, I have persistent popups for zestyfind (which sometimes replaces my default site in Internet Explorer (and once locked me out of the Tools-Options place where I could chage it back) and other assorted things (HDTV for one). I can usually fix any trouble they cause, but what a nuisance.

Is there anything out there or anything I can do to get rid of this "crap"?

Pardon my French and thank you!

Tom

[glc]

This is getting to be a REAL problem - it's ridiculous. My best suggestion for prevention is use an alternative browser - the malware writers have IE by the cojones. They are coming up with crap faster than the good guys can find cures.

Big 3 alternatives that are not just IE in a shell are Mozilla, Firefox, and Opera.

[TomAJohnson]

I am ready to make the move. I notice you did not include Netscape in any of its iterations. Purposefully omitted.

Do any (or all) of the three you suggest make it easy to transport message logs and address books (along with groups therein)?

Maybe we could pick one and all go at once -- and share any troubleshooting that occurs along the way.

Tom

[ceolstan]

I just switched over to firefox from mozilla a week ago. It automatically imported all my Favorites from IE, so there was no problem there at all!

I also downloaded Thunderbird as my mail program. For years, I avoided web-based mail programs (exception being yahoo) in favor of PINE and some of the classic UNIX mailers because my primary ISP was on top of a unix box. So far, I like Thunderbird just fine.

Insofar as your IE problems, I think your browser has been hijacked on more than one occasion, and it's likely that you've some reg keys that have to be cleaned out. You might want to look in one of the security forums here, or, perhaps, check out tomcoyote. You may need to download hijackthis! and run it to get a view of what's happening in the registry. However, if you adjust your settings for both spybot and Adaware, you can get rid of most browser hijackers.

Good luck!

[xbenjix72]

i use mozilla for the most part. rarely ill jump on the ie wagon. mozilla just feels like a better browser to me, and there's less hijacks to worry about. on mozilla rightnow . go mozilla!

[glc]

I omitted Netscape because it's just Mozilla with the addition of a bunch of AOL junk.

Firefox is only the browser - importing IE favorites is easy, and you will continue to use your current e-mail and news programs. If you want to dump Outhouse Express too, you can import your address book and e-mails into Mozilla, but I don't see any newsgroup import facility.