SpywareBlaster and Hotmail Issue

[Ars Loqui]

This one's a doozy.

So last night I'm trying to get rid of this lousy spyware/adware thing that messes with search results on Google (I've still been unable to fix this, suggestions are welcome), and one of the articles I found on the subject recommended that I download SpywareBlaster to remedy the problem. So I download the program, install it, and... nothing. I enable all protection, and... nothing. Disheartened, I proceeded to uninstall SpywareBlaster.

I pointed my browser to my Hotmail, planning to write an uncle of mine who works in the computer biz, and I noticed that my e-mail had gone awry. I was able to log into Hotmail, but any time that I clicked anything therein my browser flashed a 'This page cannot be displayed' with the address 'http:///'. It was only through skillful manipulation that I was able to access anything at all; that is, I would click the desired link and then hit 'Stop' on my browser as soon as the page began to load. Although several images remained unloaded, I was able to finally access messages--but I needed to repeat the click-and-hit-stop process every time I wished to access a different page. Before long I began to notice a pattern: my browser was fine with loading the actual pages, but I was immediately forwarded to the 'This page cannot be displayed' page as soon as an advertisement began to load.

This leads me to believe that SpywareBlaster is responsible for the misbehavior of my e-mail. I had never had a problem such as this with my Hotmail before loading SpywareBlaster, and though the problem persisted after I uninstalled the program I am certain that SpywareBlaster is to fault. I even tried reinstalling the program, removing everything that it blocked, and then uninstalling again, but to no avail. I have seen other threads dealing with SpywareBlaster messing with MSN Messenger and Outlook as well, and I was wondering if anybody around here could please offer me some advice or suggestions. I need my e-mail back!

[Detox]

Hi, and welcome to Wilders.

OK - first off, SpywareBlaster does NOT cure Spyware problems. SpywareBlaster simply sets registry killbits to protect from such nasties installing themselves.

Further, removing protection in SWB removes all effect it has had on your system. Obviously, your hotmail difficulties are unrelated to SWB, as were those other people's MSN and Outlook difficulties.

You need to try a Spyware scanner/remover, such as Spybot; S&D, or Ad-Aware (or both). Those are the ones I would recommend, anyway.

If your difficulties persist, check out our cleaning forum here. (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=26) Following the instructions in the "how to post.." sticky-thread will lead you down the road to cleanliness ;)

[4rs Loqui]

Wonderful, I can't even log in here anymore.

Anyway, I have and have used Spybot S&D, Ad-Aware, and Spysweeper, and all have served well to keep me spyware free. However, I am convinced that it is SpywareBlaster that is to blame for my e-mail difficulties. The *only* things that I had done after starting up the computer were to open Internet Explorer, pull up an article via Google, download SpywareBlaster and install it. The next morning I awoke, started my computer, accessed my e-mail and began having difficulty with it, so I uninstalled SpywareBlaster. The problems, however, continue, and I am led to believe that it is in fact related to SpywareBlaster, as I performed no other operations on the computer during that time period, and this has never occured on this machine before. It is not a Hotmail issue, either, because my e-mail works on other computers. My only hypothesis is that SpywareBlaster forgets to change something in the registry even after it has been uninstalled, and that is what is continuing to cause these problems.

[LowWaterMark]

Uninstalling SpywareBlaster does not remove its protections. You have to actually use SpywareBlaster to disable all protections before uninstalling it. If you did not disable the protections before removing it, you'll need to reinstall SpywareBlaster to disable the protections.

[4rs Loqui]

I tried that, but it did nothing to aid my plight.

[LowWaterMark]

{QUOTE-> I tried that, but it did nothing to aid my plight. <-QUOTE}Well, SpywareBlaster is a fairly simple program. It adds very little to the registry related to the program itself, and all the protections it provides use the specific registry keys that already exist for that purpose.

For example, the ActiveX killbits are not a Javacool creation, they are a standard setting in the registry and Javacool merely sets specific ones (related to known spyware) which are removed if you disable its protections. Also, IE's restricted zone and P3P cookie blocking are again standard settings. Within IE itself, you can use Internet Options... Security tab > sites listings to see the restricted sites added by SB and even manually remove them from there if you wanted. Same with the IE6 Privacy tab and the list of spyware cookies being blocked.

When you disable SpywareBlaster's protections, you should be back to where you were before they were enabled. There are a large number of systems using both Hotmail and SpywareBlaster without a problem, so I really doubt that is the cause here.

But let's go back to where you first started...

{QUOTE-> So last night I'm trying to get rid of this lousy spyware/adware thing that messes with search results on Google (I've still been unable to fix this, suggestions are welcome), and one of the articles I found on the subject recommended that I download SpywareBlaster to remedy the problem. <-QUOTE}You said you already have some sort of spyware infection. The starting place ought to be to clean your system of that now. As mentioned above SpywareBlaster is not a cleaner. However, many spyware infections have evasive techniques they use when they recognise anti-spyware software on systems. The combination of an existing infection and the addition of SpywareBlaster could possibly cause some problems.

The way to check your system fully is to follow the procedure documented in this next thread, posting a HijackThis log for expert review and following up with the recommendations made there. Then once cleaned, we can come back and see if there is actually a SpywareBlaster problem.

HOW TO? Read here about how to post your log!! (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=15913)