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Well my missus downloaded a bittorrent file thingy (if you catch my drift ) over the weekend. The file has since been deleted, but we've had nothing but pop-up after pop-up and it's kinda getting on my nerves now

We haven't altered our internet settngs - pop-up blocker is still set to medium, which, until now, has been more than adequate

I've tried a virus scan using http://uk.trendmicro-europe.com/consume ... launch.php and I also have Avast Antivirus installed which I've also used to do a thorough scan. I've tried a spyware scan, using Windows Defender and Ad-Aware SE Personal

Anyone any idea how to weed out what's causing these 'cos I reckon something has been installed - it's just finding the damn thing lol

Any help would be much appreciated

Whilst I was typing this thread, I got 4 pop-up ads

There's a chance that your messenger service (nothing to do with MSN messenger) has been enabled. Check here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/usin ... pspam.mspx

Or it could be adware or browser hijack.
Smitfraudfix is an excellent tool. http://siri.geekstogo.com/SmitfraudFix.php
Or you could try Spybot Search and Destroy (usually find things that Adaware doesn't) http://www.spybot.info/en/index.html

What i had to do was find the damn things and delete them in add/remove peograms. There was about 7 things that automatically installed as soon as i clicked on a page. I just uninstalled everything that i thought had a dodgy name and just hope i didnt uninstall anything important which luckily i didnt.

Unfortunately you have got a lot of adware apps installed on your machine from the file you downloaded. These are extremely difficult to get rid of without the right software which generally costs.

I recommend the programs listed in the above post from beeno.

Are you using Internet Explorer or Firefox? And do these popups come up when using the browsers only or at random times when the browsers isn’t even loaded up.

Unfortunately the way I had to get rid of a similar problem from my PC once was to format the thing. If you have an external hard drive or Ipod and don’t mind losing installed programs I would always recommend this as it guaranties you PC is clean. It will also speed it up .

beeno wrote:There's a chance that your messenger service (nothing to do with MSN messenger) has been enabled. Check here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/usin ... pspam.mspx

Well, I checked this and messenger service isn't enabled

lindz wrote:What i had to do was find the damn things and delete them in add/remove peograms.

..... so, I looked in add/remove programs and there's something in there called CiD and I noticed that most (if not all) of these windows that open up are titled CiD. The only thing is, this CiD file is 0kb in size
Anyway I've deleted it and rebooted etc, etc and up to now (touch wood) I ain't had 1 single pop-up add.

You can guarantee now that I've typed this, the floodgates will open and I'll be inundated with the damn things lol

If you are not already using firefox as a browser now would be a good time to start and never have to worry about "pop up" problems again.

Firefox stops popups in the browser. Moonbeam's are probably generated by a program[s] running on his computer.

Also Try the AVG Anti-SPyware 7.5 (formerly known as Ewido).
It's great. It has a free trial of 30 days.
You can also try the freeware Spyware Blaster.

http://news.com.com/Spyware,+adware+hide+in+BitTorrent+downloads/2100-7349_3-5750601.html news about bittorrent.

Spybot search and destroy is good for stuff like this. Even if you've deleted the files yourself, they can hide and come back later. Spybot is good at finding any remaining scraps.

Be careful when downloading .exe files from any source, especially 'dodgy' things like P2P.

Firefox is definitely the best browser as far as security is concerned, (although your browser is obviously not to blame this time). If you install an firefox extension called No-script you'll be practically bullet proof when browsing. (Ever since installing no-script I've never had a single pop-up, or unwanted software trying to install itself.)

Are you using a firewall? Zone alarm is a good (and free) choice IMO.

you might try taking your comp into safe mode, run all your scans, delete all interenet files and cookies.

I'm using Internet Explorer at the mo (version 7 I think - or whatever the latest version is out at the mo ) and just Windows firewall, which, up until now had been sufficient

Thanks for all the help, but so far (I really hope I'm not tempting fate saying this ), since I deleted that CiD file, I haven't had 1 pop-up ad

*Waits for the anticipated barrage of pop-up ads*