Adware, spyware, malware. GAH!

The other day, I decided I'd install Picasa. Now anyone with a blogger account might know what this is. To upload images, you are told to use a program called "Hello!". It's sister program is Picasa, a digital picture editing program. In Hello!, it says you can try Picasa free for 15 days, but it seems now it has been made free.

Me, being the idiot I am, though that I had a good program available to me. "Wheee! I have a good program available to me" I said. So I downloaded it. I should have seen the next bit coming...

So away I go and install it. I'll note it is the most hideous program to use, ever. And I mean ever (well, there was this one program...). It kinda sucks a bit. So I decide that it's crap and I should uninstall it. "This is crap. I'm going to uninstall it" I thought to myself. So I did, and thought that was the end of that. However, unfortunately, it wasn't.

All of the sudden, my computer got real slow, for quite a while. It would stop responding for a few seconds at a time. What the hell? My first course of action is of course to press ctrl-alt-del and see what processes are running. A horror befell my eyes.

Webrebates0.exe
Webrebates1.exe
bargainbuddy.exe

AIEEEEE!!!! It's the ADWARE! RUN AWAY!

My instant reaction was to close them. Bargainbuddy provided no problems, but webrebates refused to close. I click close on one of them, it closes, and then reopens and insists on hogging my entire P4 1.5GHtz processor to itself for 15 seconds. I try the other, and it does the same. So I click "End Process Tree", and they both die. Phew!

So out pops Spybot Search & Destroy (Best adware removal program ever!) and ran it. That morning, I'd done a routine scan and found the 1 or 2 things that I usually find (I surf I bit, I do, and stuff gets through my firewall). However, this time, I'd found no less than 25 items! Twenty-five! And there had been none a few hours earlier! "Grrr", I said.

But before I deleted them, I decided to see if there were any other traces, such as installer files. I run a system find for "webrebates*.exe", and find the folder (conveniently C:/Program Files/Web_rebates). Guess what I found there? An installer file, but not any old installer. It had a rather amusing name, along the lines of "toprates_installer_silent.exe" SILENT! The bastards SILENTLY installed a program on MY computer! MINE!!!

So I delete those, and let Spybot S&D do its cleaning, but half the stuff is still in use by the system, so I have to restart my system! I'm busy! I have no time for this! ARRGGGHHHH!!

Two hours later, it was gone. Those bastards who make this shit should be strung up and have tree surgeons use them as growbags for a hyacinth bush. Do they seriously think ANYONE pays attention to their ads? I mean come on man! If I want to buy something, I'll go to ebay, or Viking Direct, or another reputable online store. Half these gobshites would laugh at you and steal your money. "Ha ha ha! We stole you money" they would say.

Gobshites.

Moggy's Tip of the Day:
"Once upon a time, in a fridge, far far away, there was... BREAD WARS!!!! If you take my meaning that is..."

What the feck is this cat on? Drink? Drugs? Catnip?

Signing off,
Andrew.