Adware pop-ups on browser opening but forget this as

I messed up not realizing this topic was here, so I will go through the threads to find answer first...sorry.


I may have used the wrong term, but when I was visiting my son over Thanksgiving, I noted when the brwoser opens, a number of pop-ups appear, in quick sequence - which requires using Escape key to remove each window, and there are a lot of them. this happens at each browser startup...

The irony is that the pop-ups all promote using a particular anti-spyware or adware invasion.

I then downloaded some programs to clean machine, suggested by good souls on other threads here, such as, ccleaner, index.dat cleaner, and others. I applied them, including one called SpyBlaster. The pop-ups remain.

My son has a number of game sites on his desktop that allows his sons to play games and I am certain some of these are the source of the infection, so aside from killing off these pests, what does one do to fend off future invasions?

Merci!

 

Hive - this is the first of your posts I've noticed although I see by the post count that you've made a few. At any rate, a somewhat belated welcome to the forum. I read some of the page at your fishing link and anyone who uses a pin and talks about a wallis cast deserves the best answer I can manage.

- To get a reasonable idea of the health of your son's machine (in terms of spyware/malware/protection/etc.) the easiest will be if you get a copy of the latest version of Hijackthis, run a scan, and post a copy of the scan log so we can take a look. That many pop-ups does sound like he has some critters in residence.

- Some of the protective details will depend on detail easiest gotten from the same Hijackthis log file so I'll wait on those.

- The usual protection suite suggested here and the one I've adopted based on their advice and have been pretty satisfied with
** Spybot Search & Destroy - after the install it will suggest immunizing and that's a good idea. Most later updates to the app will add items to the 'block' list so updating every couple of weeks is a good idea. I also like their Tea Timer utility as it adds additional protection.
** Ad-aware is more find & remove oriented against spyware/malware without some of the extra blocking features of Spybot but it finds things the others miss so is worth loading and keeping up to date. Running it and Spybot weekly at first is good practice.
** Spywareblaster is purely passive protection so just install and update once a month or so. I think it is blocking around 3300 baddies at this point so they never get to your PC.
** Since so much is happening on the machine and since it sounds like they frequent some questionable sites, I'd also suggest running at least one online virus scan.

I'll hold off on any other thoughts until after seeing the HJT log.