[geeks] Advertising status bar in I.E.

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Hi,

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

Their support contract ends with the school year, so they are
sending someone a few days a week because they have to, he's
a warm body at the worst, and not very experienced at best.


She is running Windows XP (SP2) and I.E. 6. She has run Adaware and
Windows Defender.

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


Whenever she goes to a web site, for example Amazon, her status bar
has all sorts of links to web sites that sell items that are referred
to on the page. 


She is concerned that something is scanning the web pages she is visiting
and not only slowing things down, but sending back information, possibly
passwords, etc.


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.

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.

Anyone have any ideas on what to do? I'm glad we don't have it here,
but without reproducing it, I'm lost. 

Thanks,

Geoff.



-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
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