RUGI - Beware Spyware

[Damo]

I was looking for some Clay Tile Patterns and took a look over at the old RUGI site.

The site seems to be redirected to 'landing.domainsponcer.com' A pop-up window appeared announcing (or warning me) that I may have Spyware on my PC (another message said it was 'critical errors' on my PC).

From personal experience, please all be very aware of these messages.
A secretary in our offices came across a very similar message on her PC and hit the 'next' button in good faith,..... and installed the Spyware :x

It took me 6 hours over a few days attempting to remove it (including a System Restore), even had our IT consultant on the case too, neither of us were able to remove the Spyware (by GAIN Publishing).

Eventually I had to re-format the Hard Drive! :banghead:

I know you all have heard these messages before, but seeing it on an old Revit related web-site I thought it best to flag this one up.

[cosmickingpin]

These guys have a free program that checks for and removes sypware (maligant stuff and even the peaceful datatminers alike) that I have been happy with:
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
it is free and it it works great, they offer forever free updates.

[sjsl]

Spybot is also free and excellent!

[ejburrell67787]

I also use the lavasoft one and Spybot and between them they both seem to get rid of a lot of junk...

I would also recomend using Mozilla Firefox as your browser instead of the usual IE - Firefox pop-up blocker is way way better than IE ever seemed to be. (Its free)

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/start/

Elrond

[hand471037]

Or switch your Browser, and use Firefox or Opera instead. Simply by doing this your spyware problems will be reduced a good 90% or more, simply because they both require a little more user interaction to install something within them, and don't have the same design flaws that Microsoft made in regards to IE and ActiveX, which (for now) is the main vehicle that all this Spyware rides in on.

[rookwood]

Here is a link to a report today from CNET regarding spyware and several software packages that deal with it.

I use Spybot, free with free updates...so far so good. It was recommended by our IT guys.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-9241-6216511-1.html?tag=nl.e404

[Damo]

Thanks guys for all your advice. I knew you would be up-to-date on this stuff, I only wanted to highlight the issue as it’s on the old RUGI site.

I did use:
Ad-Aware by Lavasoft
SpywareBlaster
Spybot Search & Destroy

None to any avail. This Spyware by GAIN publishing was a real stickler.

Our IT consultant tried another spyware removal tool (can’t remember) and it still wouldn’t shift.

Unfortunately the PC was running Windows ME, so I couldn’t install Microsoft’s AntiSpyware Beta (only works on XP machines)

As luck would have it, this was the only PC in the office using Windows IE, and the secretary was new, so wasn’t familiar with our rules on browsing none-work related web sites during lunch hour and asking questions if something suspicious appears.

[ita]

Try CounterSpy from Sunbelt http://www.sunbelt-software.com/CounterSpy-Buy.cfm - it is winning praise from many commentators and not expensive. A years licence with continuous upgrades and active protection is around US$20. There are other opp system tool attached as well!

Another product I use with extremely pleasing results is Autopilot - which is simply a thread manager that has some "awareness". The improvement in app management on both the laptop and the workstation was obvious!! Again not expensive.

Sunbelt have a number of newsletters which provide interesting reading in what is happening in the IT world. The most interesting news seems to break in their newsletters first.

This may help!

BTW I am not prepared to have my machines compromised for the sake of $20 - (3 beers). If the free app is not up to scratch I pay a bigger price in rebuilding the machine - even if I only have to ghost the opp system. Sunbelt has proved reliability to me for over 6 years - they have been around a while and are a smart group!!

[JamesVan]

While on the subject, does anybody know what this Revit installation file is for?

C:\Program Files\Autodesk Revit Building 8\Program\AdSubAware.exe

[David Conant]

It provides better access to Autodesk's subscription resources for those users who are on subscription. It has nothing to do with advertising.

[beegee]

This link (http://www.fileproperties.com/a/a-index.htm) allows you to check out the properties of a wide range of files.