Are you downloading vst's from Dr. Tickle?  He is known to put tool-bars in the installers...   and the synths are synth edit crap

sharke


http://botcrawl.com/how-to-remove-text-enhance/

Text "enhance" -- lol

That's the culpret! Thanks for the link sharke.
 
I'll check into the restore points too but I doubt it'll show up there.
 
Steve

Beepster


Also if you use firefox you can get an addon called NoScript and it will stop that before it borks with things. You can also use AdBlock and add it to your block list or use Ghostery which are both available for Chrome... but really you need to scan the BEEP out of your system.

Agreed!! 100%!!


Do not surf the net without these tools!


NoScript gets aggravating when you have a wife that isn't too computer savvy, but still well worth it!! 

"Do those text links in your posts bug you?"

Did you mean like this?

Nyes.

I use AdBlockPlus in Chrome and never see those links. I don't use AdBlock on Firefox and do see them there, mostly on gearslutz. I'm assuming therefore that Ad Block eliminates them.

EDIT: was just in gs and saw some links still there, even after adding Ad Block to Firefox. These are from an outfit called skiplinks, and they are not placed there by your browser but rather by the forum publisher itself, which receives payment in return. So it would appear that Gearslutz is actually allowing Skiplinks to embed those annoying links in the text so there's no way for users to remove them (they link to many sites, some of which you wouldn't want to block, such as e-bay). 

I suppose it really a good thing - if you click on a link GS makes a couple pennies. But the out-of-context links are often hilariously inappropriate.

If you want to get rid of Spyware on a PC without paying for Webroot or something, you can download Microsoft Security Essentials for free.  Just Google that but be sure you only download from the real Microsoft site.
 
Maybe not the greatest program in the world, but after Webroot let two bad viruses through, I decided I would be just as well off with the free program.  Seems to work, but I am still careful about where I go on the Internet.

Other anti-virus programs slowed down my PC so much that they were almost as bad as the Spyware itself.

Avast will only slow your system down for a couple of minutes (if at all) when it is updating it's definitions and it is a pretty heavy duty AV for free. It isn't as light as MSE though so I have MSE on my DAW and Avast on my interwebby computer. But really most of the crap that will infect your system can be stopped with script blockers like NoScript and Ghostery (I find Ghostery slows down the page loads though) ans AdBlockers like ABP. There is also a new AddOn called DoNotTrack that is supposedly gaining some traction but I haven't looked at it for a few months. Word was once it had built it's definition database it would outperform NoScript and Ghostery. Also do NOT DOWNLOAD ANYTHING from the internet unless you are CERTAIN it is safe. Scan all files and programs before opening/executing them (right click and the menu should give you an option to scan the item with whatever AV/Antimalware programs you have installed). Do NOT download toolbars... they are usually spyware or redirect programs of some kind. When installing "legit" programs always read the install screens to make sure there aren't "extra" programs or toolbars being installed by default (for example many programs include Chrome these days which is safe enough but other programs are not so friendly). If it asks you to install something that is NOT affiliated with the actual program you are installing uncheck the option to install it. If you are unsure about a website, program, toolbar, domain name, etc... do a google search of it to see what comes up... then do a search with the name + "spyware" or "virus" or "malware" or "remove" to get an idea of what others on the net are saying about it. CNET is a great resource for learning about this type of thing as is BleepingComputer. When doing those types of searches you'll find those two websites come up quite often with helpful info.

Oh and another note on downloading stuff... download to a non crucial computer so that if something IS infected you can find out instead of screwing up a good system. Old laptops are great for this. Do all your scans on that system, install it to see what happens, if all is well then proceed with the good machines. Also many AVs (like Avast) have isolation programs where you can download and manipulate files separate from the main system. In Avast it is called the "Sandbox". If something is wrong it won't effect the rest of the system and Avast will just get rid of it or quarantine it. Have restore plans in place (restore discs, rollback points, system image, etc...) so that if something DOES manage to get through (which it likely won't if you follow my advice) then you can just wipe out the computer critters completely. Obviously you will lose any data created from the last restore point but if you back up after any critical points in your work then it should be fine.