SOooOoOoOoo... I finally got Comcast high-speed internet. It's the cable internet that is seven times faster than DSL... and guess what? I have new and unusual virus problems. It took me about 15 minutes on the internet to pick up an "unkillable" little trojan-like program that keeps trying to connect to the internet, and none of my anti-virus stuff can do anything about it. Zone Alarm stops it every time, but I'm really annoyed that I can't find it. It's SO unusual that it opens up my browser by itself, and it gives me one of three search pages. THAT is more annoying than most.

I believe, one way you get this, is when you go to a site where a window pops up saying you need to add such and such software to view the site correctly. And, even if you click cancel, it still downloads without you knowing it! I understand that, the only way to avoid this is Ctrl-Alt-Del, and exit your browser that way! Don't want to worry you, but I also read that this connects to a premium rate line, and all the time you are then connected,it's at premium rate on your phone bill! Can't remember where I read about this, and not had it myself, but I have seen these things, never trusted it and exited as I said! Of course, the one you have may be different, but it sounds familiar! Hope you solve it!

There was a recent study by a security organization (not even a single company, but a securities group). The study found that the average life of a system connected to broadband without any protection was about 15 20 minutes, less time then it took to get the updates and start protecting yourself. While you use ZoneAlarm, you may want to look into a inexpensive hardware firewall as well. While there are a number of brands, Linksys has done pretty well by me. This also will give you the ability to share your new broadband connection with multiple systems within your house (once you wire the other locations). It will help trap out some of these types of things Also if youre running Windows XP or 2000 (or higher), go into the Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services. Look for Microsoft Messenger. Not the MSN Messenger, this one is for Network servers to broadcast to your system its typically set to Automatic, double click on it and set it to Disabled. This should keep some of these pop-ups from getting through. Then you need to get something like Ad-aware or Spybot Search and Destroy to clean out whats already made it past everything else. Good luck and happy surfing (once you get this cleaned up)

There's no problem with High Speed Internet... Do you think they'd be able to do that to you in just 15 minutes on dial-up? :)

" There was a recent study by a security organization (not even a single company, but a securities group). The study found that the average life of a system connected to broadband without any protection was about 15 20 minutes, less time then it took to get the updates and start protecting yourself. " when I rebuilt my wife's PC a coupla weeks ago, I made a tool's CD. AVG, Adware Pro, ZonealarmPro, XP SP1 and all the drivers I would need for her machine. I did'nt even plug her machine back into our network until I had run my tools disk. then it was a dash to get all the updates for Adware / AVG... I made it tho :):)

Among other things, you can run a copy of CWShredder. CoolWebSearch has a way of tinkering with everything, and it def will hijack your browser.