A few days ago, I reinstalled windows. It was nessisary, but quite a few un-good things happened from it.
For one, my anti-virus software seems to have gone poof. Are there any good free virus-scanners avalible?
Also, I seem to be getting a LOT of popups. I use AOL as my main browser (Shut up, it’s that or IE.), but even when I’m not connected, I get popups in IE windows. Even when I’m not doing anything. I’ve run Ad-Aware AND Spybot, and still. I’m beggining to suspect a virus, which brings me back to my original problem. Maybe I need to get a better firewall…
Have you tried a pop-up blocker? Firefox has one built in. Mozilla Firefox
But if you’re getting pop-ups when you’re not even connected it could be an ad generating program that somehow downloaded to your computer. My mom’s computer had one of those. Check the programs you have installed in the Control Panel–> Add/Remove Software.
Easily set up to run automatically (unlike Norton, which never seems to work right). After a few scans it should only take like, 90 minutes or so (for my 60 gb hard drive). Catches tons of shit and alerts you of updates (which are free).
I think I have the free version, I’m not sure though since my brother installed it.
One thing you might want to try doing is rebooting into safe mode and running spy bot and adaware.