"I Luv You" icon

[Maurice]

I have raised this before, I have an icon that reads "I Luv You", with an image of a red heart, plus the words "Sex Shows"
I believe you advised me to go to add/delete programs to get rid, I did this, but the icon was there again, when I next booted up. I then went to the recycle bin, found "sex shows"/ "I Luv You" & hit "delete".......STILL the icon is there.
IS there a way to finally get rid?....& is it just an "ad" or is it a virus/bug/worm?, please help!
P.S., I forwarded your newsletter to a friend, he is always looking for hardware bargains.

 

[Nodsu]

Install Ad-Aware or Spybot S&D with latest updates and scan your system.

The thing reappearing at boot suggests that you should take a critical look at your startup programs. Check the startup list in msconfig. If you don't see anything useless there then go rummage through registry keys that define starup items.

 

[Greeno]

Agree totally with Nodsu, check for spyware, otherwise, check the windows Startup group in your start menu, failing that, MSCONFIG... then check the registry for "Sex" and "Luv" rather than "You" and "Show" because they're more un-common words.

Hope this helps

 

[Greeno]

Oh, and.... /me slaps your wrist for 'dodgy' surfing

 

[Maurice]

Firstly, I did not do any dodgy surfing, Greeno! However, when using Google one day for a perfectly innocent enquiry on an unrelated subject, something in the way I worded it must have brought up a dodgy site, I did notice a strange address on the end of the list.......now that's cleared up [I hope] can you be less technical?, I don't understand MSCONFIG, & how do I investigate via Startup folks?
Having said all this, the crux of the matter, as far as I'm concerned, is it doing any harm?, I take it that is just an ad, if so, it can just sit there, I shan't use it, it is of no interest to me.
Thanks.

 

[Nodsu]

What you see is just an ad most likely but the problem may be with the stuf you don't see. There may be lots of spyware running in the backgroud eating your memory, CPU cycles and network bandwidth.

DId you run Ad-Aware or Spybot scans?

In msconfig, look under the startup tab. Untick anything that you think shouldn't be run at startup.

 

[Spike]

MSCONFIG simply configures such little things like boot options for windows xp. Bring it up by clicking Start --> Run -->and type MSCONFIG, then hit Enter.

It could well be a dialer for a pornography service that has downloaded in the background as you have been online. These things happe, but usually not with decent firewalls, so if you don't have one, getting one should stop it happening again.

The easiest way of getting rid of this would probably be (again) to download Ad-Aware 6 and scan your computer with it, including the option to 'deep-scan' the registry as well as the rest of your drive(s). This might even find ad/spyware you didn't even know you had. It will then enable you to delete what it finds.

 

[Maurice]

I have downloaded "Ad Aware 6" & executed a deep-scan;-
33,802 scanned, 191 objects recognised.
They now ask if I want all 191 deleted, should I go ahead & get rid of the lot, or pick some to quarantine? I'm all for deleting all 191, what's your advice?
The 191 include a lot of "Gator", plus others.
Thank you.
I presume Ican put an icon in my tray [how to I do this? or do Ad Aware provide this facility?

 

[Nodsu]

Mercilessly delete those objects Ad-Aware ticks for you, you can leave the cookies alone if you want but it is not important.

Put an icon in your tray? If you mean realtime scanning then Ad-Aware has this feature but I don't remember if it can be enabled in the free version.

 

[Godataloss]

should be ok to delet them, but I always back up my system before running spybot and ad aware- that said I've never had to use them because spybot and ad aware did anything wrong.

As for ms config- go to start, click run, type msconfig, click the startup tab and uncheck boxes that are to stuf you A-dont use, B-look like they might be related to your current problem. If in doubt do it one at a time, take note of what you checked and reboot. If things are ok, continue.

btw- I ain't buying the googling accident story.