Hijack This logs hijacking problems in your registry, startup, and browser toolbars. It is NOT for beginners, but tech people will often ask for a LOG from the program.

Once I started dabbling, I found the following essential links. They can help interpret the Hijack This logs.

Hijack This Log Tutorial
Hijack This Tutorial
BHO and Toolbar List (by TonyK.)
Startup List (by PacMan)

Because Merijn no longer updates CWShredder (the program to kill CoolWebsearch highjacking), PCHell started listing manual removal steps.

....Or, what I did with my summer vacation.

After long battles with spyware that resulted in my computer crashing followed by a visit to Computer Heaven, I have decided to describe briefly some of the things I learned to do to combat securing my computer. Remember, these are newbie steps!!

For me, at least, understanding why and how something works helps me to make sense of what needs doing, but all this security stuff is so far beyond me that I often feel overwhelmed. I, like most of my friends and like my husband, believed that ignorance is bliss. In the case of malware, THIS IS A BAD IDEA (tm). The consequences of ignoring this problem range from minor to significant. At the minor end, you get inconvenienced with a barrage of popups and webpage highjackings. At the major end, your can suffer from identify theft (dun dun DUN.......). In between, though, comes a whole slough of crapola that includes losing control of your browser or having so much invisible stuff stealing your ram that your computer is visibly slow.

What it all means! Basic explanations of what Spyware is and how it works:

How to Protect Your Computer from Spyware and Adware -- From Microsoft; simple and brief; includes excellent links
Internet Intruders -- From Pest Patrol; excellent and thorough
Combatting Nonviral Malware -- From Information Security, a magazine about security (not just internet security); Good explanation of different sorts of malware and links to reviewed removal products.
Cyber Menace -- Also from Information Security; a -long- series about combatting malware and other problems.

What it looks like! Things to pay attention to because you've been hit.

Here are 9 warning signs you should be aware of, if any of them pertain to you then your PC is most likely infected:

When you start your browser, the home page has mysteriously changed. You change it back manually, but before long you find that it has changed back again.

You get pop-up advertisements when your browser is not running or when your system is not even connected to the Internet, or you get pop-up ads that address you by name.

Your phone bill includes expensive calls to 900 numbers that you never made-probably at an outrageous per-minute rate.

You enter a search term in Internet Explorer's address bar and press Enter to start the search. Instead of your usual search site, an unfamiliar site handles the search.

A new item appears in your Favorites list without your putting it there. No matter how many times you delete it, the item always reappears later.

Your system runs noticeably slower than it did before. If you're a Windows 2000/XP user, launching the Task Manager and clicking the Processes tab reveals that an unfamiliar process is using nearly 100 percent of available CPU cycles.

At a time when you're not doing anything online, the send or receive lights on your dial-up or broadband modem blink just as wildly as when you're downloading a file or surfing the Web. Or the network/modem icon in your system tray flashes rapidly even when you're not using the connection.

A search toolbar or other browser toolbar appears even though you didn't request or install it. Your attempts to remove it fail, or it comes back after removal.

And the final sign is: Everything appears to be normal. The most devious spyware doesn't leave traces you'd notice, so scan your system anyway.

--From Fastnet

What to do! What to do!

The three most important steps to this process are first, keep your computer up to date on security patches from Microsoft (or whoever you got your operating system from), because malicious programs work by exploiting holes in your operating system.

Second, install programs that lets you clean up your computer clean. There are several programs that are EXCELLENT and Free: Ad-Aware, Spybot Search&Destroy, and CWShredder. The first time I ran them, I was surprised at how much they found. It reminds me of plaque on your teeth or barnacles on an old ship or something. Like anti-virus programs, these programs work best when fresh and up-to-date.

Third, install something that will help _keep_ your computer clean. I use WinPatrol. WinPatrol has a cute little scotty dog that barks every time something evil is about to happen to my machine. It also has features that can help clean up an infested system. There's a shareware version and a registered version. I paid for my version because it gives a host of information about what's on your computer and I needed it in order to clean out my system. Man, I was so toxic!

These steps are easy, but because my computer had so many problems, I learned a great deal more about things I needed to do and how this all worked and so I've also listed the maintenance links that I use to stay clean. They won't make sense unless you start actually tangling with this stuff and if you're a beginner, you shouldn't start poking around without help. That's how I ended up at Computer Heaven. :)

What NOT to do!

Do not use any other spyware or malware cleaners without thoroughly researching the program first. There are at least 30 KNOWN bogus programs out there that are, in fact, malware themselves. Once they are installed, they are a BITCH to remove. I know because I made this mistake myself.