[geeks] Advertising status bar in I.E.

[Micah R Ledbetter]

Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

> My wife has a problem at work. Their computer technician does not
> know the difference between a virus and spyware. 

What do you mean? If this was a virus, wouldn't it be fixed sooner?

Also, I hate to suggest it, but can they just re-image her machine?

> She does not have administrator access, so she can't go into safe
> mode.

My suggestion is to download something like BartPE or LEGALLY PURCHASE 
(ahem) Winternals Administrator Pack. From there, I believe you can run 
Spybot and such.

> None of the computers here do that. She likes IE and wants to run the
> same browser here and at work. I use FireFox on her computer to keep
> cookies, bookmarks, etc separate.

The Right Thing (tm) may be to just take the opportunity to switch her 
to FireFox, depending on how you feel about that. That's my advice, FWIW.

Of course, this would only be in addition to smashing the spyware that's 
on her computer presently.

> STFWing produces press announcements about a Dutch College student who
> "invented the technology" (my wife thinks he should be in jail),
> programs to manage cookies, and the usual offers of improved toolbar
> icons, antispyware websites that install spyware, and so on.

Insert "Malware authors should {die,have their gonads removed,be forced 
to rewrite the Linux kernel in object-oriented Cobol}" comment.

  - Micah