I've run both Adaware and SpyBot a bunch recently, but I've got 2 spyware-like items I still can't shake. One is something that just showed up this morning and acts like a search toolball in internet explorer. I cannot get rid of the toolbar. "Mirar" is the name.

Also, upon startup this tiny application called "version" runs, and seems to cause random pop-up ads regularly while browsing.

Any thoughts on how I can snuff these things out?

Have you updated both Adaware and SpyBot? (Just getting the obvious out of the way...)

Here is a site that shows you how to maually get rid of Mirar (and it looks to be a pain in the ass..)

http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/library/mirartoolbar.b/index.phtml


(Edit: That's for Mirar Toolbar.B, dunno which one you have. but there's a similar page for the regualr Mirar Toolbar linked on that site)

If cthomer doesn't mind (and a fellow Scarlet Knight better not :)), allow me to throw in a computer problem that is most likely spyware related.

I just came back to my parents computer. For the past week or so, whenever they have turned on the computer and opened Internet Explorer, the "search" window opens as well and appears on the left side. Its opened up to a search engine that looks like searchxl.com. It has a list of things you can click to search for, including diet pills, hair growth pills, and "other" pills (we'll just leave it at that). Of course I can close the window to restore IE to full size, but once the computer gets restarted, it comes right back the first time IE is opened.

Any ideas?

Try deleting everything in the internet temp files? Forget the exact folder called it, where the google bar etc are

Originally posted by Logan
If cthomer doesn't mind (and a fellow Scarlet Knight better not :)), allow me to throw in a computer problem that is most likely spyware related.

I just came back to my parents computer. For the past week or so, whenever they have turned on the computer and opened Internet Explorer, the "search" window opens as well and appears on the left side. Its opened up to a search engine that looks like searchxl.com. It has a list of things you can click to search for, including diet pills, hair growth pills, and "other" pills (we'll just leave it at that). Of course I can close the window to restore IE to full size, but once the computer gets restarted, it comes right back the first time IE is opened.

Any ideas?

this just worked for me:

download ad aware (or make sure it's up to date) and run it
(http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/)

download spybot (or make sure it's up to date) and run it.
(http://www.safer-networking.org/)

thanks for the help guys, it was indeed a really obvious issue!

One thing you can do, but only if you have a reasonable idea what you are doing and if you know the name of the ware you are trying to get rid of, is to open up regedit, search for it, and delete anything that comes up. Worked for me a few times.