Hello. I am new here. A few days ago I installed Avast and I must say it works very well. My computer is running much faster now when I’m online (the speed which webpages download). It also found a few bad things and locked them away.
I also installed the new Spybot Search & Destroy - the one that has the “resident” on it. I think its called Tea-Timer? Anyway, the Resident is constantly giving me pop-ups that I don’t understand. The popups say:
Category: Browser Menu Extension
Change: Value Deleted
Entry: AOL Toolbar Search
At the bottom of the popup is a button that says “Allow Change”. There is also a square to check that says “Remember This Decision”.
When I click the button that says “Allow Change” to make the popup go away, a NEW popup appears! This one then reads:
Category: Browser Menu Extension
Change: Value Added
Entry: AOL Toolbar Search
This popup has two buttons: “Allow Change” and “Deny Change”.
I get these EVERY time I open the IE Browser or my browser opens a new window. I don’t understand what a “menu extension” is or what “value” they are talking about. The browser itself looks the same as far as I can tell…? It Tea-Timer telling me I’m opening a new browser window? One of the free online games I play requires that I open many new windows (they pop up as part of the game) so I end up getting two annoying popups for EACH new window I open - that can quickly add up to be about 26 popups per day… Or more.
So can someone explain which button I should click? Is Value Added good or bad? And what in the world is a “menu extension”? Do they mean the drop-down menu that shows the address of past pages you visited? Why can’t Tea-Timer use simple language so I can understand what its saying?
And why is it talking about the AOL Toolbar when I only get these popups on the IE Browser? I use AOL for my ISP so the AOL Toolbar (Browser) is always on my computer - its my “main” browser. I use the IE one for a few websites, like the one I play games at.
Is it OK to have BOTH Tea-Timer and the Avast “blue A-ball” (On-access scanner) running at the same time? I’ve had both running yesterday and today and it seems to work OK together…
Can someone recommend another free spyware program I can download and use on my computer, one that is good at removing spy cookies and so forth? One that will just scan my computer when I want it to and not be constantly running in the bottom tray (where Avast and Spybot is). I used to use Spy Sweeper but recently had to ditch it as it kept deleting its own definitions file upon updating! I also found out it was messing up my IE browser and causes things to load extremely slow… AVOID Spy Sweeper!
I am using Windows ME. And yes, I’m quite happy with ME.
Thank you for your time. I will be back later to check for replies.
~ Aqua