How rid this poor grammer message?

October 1, 2005 11:29 AM

The following message keeps popping up in Windows concerning a virus on my computer. Is it coming from my computer or the Internet? If it's a fake (and it may be since I noticed that it's gramatically incorrect) how do I get rid of it? (message inside)

Warning!

We detected a dangerous Virus installed on your computer but was unable to remove it. This Virus allow companies/users to monitor your Internet browsing patterns. It is recommeded that you install the latest software to remove these by going to: www.fixscan.com

posted by Idiot Mittens to computers & internet (8 comments total)

That's an advertizement.

Switch to firefox, and disable popup advertizing.
posted by delmoi at 11:33 AM on October 1, 2005

Er, actually.. it might not be a web popup but a windows-messanger spam. Windows messenger (different from MSN messenger) is a tool that allows you to send messages directly to the desktops of other people on your local network, but people figured out how to use it to send spam.

You can disable windows messenger by following instructions here
posted by delmoi at 11:36 AM on October 1, 2005

Yes, this is the Windows messaging service being activated by port probes. Disable it. Stupid that it's enabled by default.
posted by rolypolyman at 11:49 AM on October 1, 2005

I was actually using Firefox, so I guess that wasn't the problem. I just followed those instructions and disabled it. Thanks!
posted by Idiot Mittens at 11:55 AM on October 1, 2005

Poor grammer! People in glass houses should not criticize others' grammar.
posted by TheRaven at 3:06 PM on October 1, 2005

Sorry, TheRaven. I guess you're flying low enough that the joke went over your head. Read my heading again, you only got one of the mistakes....
posted by Idiot Mittens at 4:42 PM on October 1, 2005

Get a firewall. Please!
A free one here: Zonealarm
or many others available. You can also turn on the windows XP firewall, assuming you are in windows XP. The reason I am saying this is that you will then no longer be vulnerable to any windows bug that is found that you haven't downloaded a patch for (assuming it's a port exploit of some kind) and it's just good practice.
posted by defcom1 at 9:43 PM on October 1, 2005

On firewalls: I used to use and recommend Zone Alarm until one particular release (was it 5.5.094? Can't quite remember) broke every machine I installed it on and the gloss went off it. It's a truly horrid thing to uninstall completely, too.

ZA has a program-blocking feature, allowing you to turn off Internet access for selected apps running on your own machine, which I used to think was a really cool security feature (if you've copped some spyware, you can stop it calling the mothership until you've figured out how to kill it); in practice, it causes more problems than it solves. I've lost count of the number of Winboxen I've seen that are failing to keep themselves up to date because ZA has inadvertently been configured to block the Windows Update service, and I've also seen several machines that mysteriously stopped printing after ZA blocked some obscurely-named part of somebody's printer driver.

My current view is that if you've got stuff running on your machine that needs its Internet access blocked, you've got a problem that needs to be fixed, not bandaided with a firewall; I no longer believe that an application program blocker is a Good Thing, especially for people who expect their machines to Just Work.

Windows XP's builtin firewall does an excellent job of doing what a firewall should do (discarding unsolicited packets originating outside your machine) and nothing else. If you want similarly straightforward protection for a Windows 98 box, I like the SoftPerfect Personal Firewall - it's a small download, works well, and hogs less of your machine than any other firewall I've seen. One gotcha with it, though: you need to change its default handing of ICMP packets, because by default it still lets your machine respond to Ping probes. After you set it up and accept its default rules, replace the one that permits bidirectional ICMP traffic with a pair of rules that permit outbound ICMP traffic and block inbound ICMP traffic.

Oh, yeah: there's a similar gotcha with the Windows XP firewall too. If you've naiveley set a Windows Firewall exception to allows file and print sharing over your LAN, this also turns on a forced exception for incoming Ping requests. You should turn OFF all global exceptions, and set up the exceptions you need per network connection (there's an Advanced tab somewhere that lets you do this) and make sure file and print sharing are not enabled over your WAN (Internet) connection.
posted by flabdablet at 11:54 PM on October 1, 2005