The good news is: that Spybot Search and Destroy has finally been updated. More good news is that Ad-Aware is still updating frequently. I got an update for both programs tonight, and I was checking Spybot every day for ages. :)

The bad news is: that after running Spybot first, and finding four tracking cookies, I ran Ad-Aware and found four more. So Spybot is still lagging behind Ad-Aware at the moment. :cry:

Can you think of 4 sites that you go to regularly that require a password? Have you noticed that after you clean your PC that you even have to re-enter your password to get to this site? Even if you only click one thing ever and run Adaware, it will find one tracking cookie. Whether the cookie is bad or not is determined in your privacy settings for IE. Adaware considers every cookie as bad. Just because they can tell where you go, doesn't mean it's a bad thing. It also doesn't mean they know or care who you are. They want to know where you are going so they can make money offering you some of it themselves or more of it themselves. Only you decide how much info they get. I'm a Trekie. I want more Star Trek everywhere so it's good they know that I visit Star Trek sites. They don't know it's me because I have my cookies set not to give them personally identifiable info about me. The more Star Trek sites I visit and they know about, the more they will support what I want more of. I have only recently come to this mode of thought. Think about this for a sec..............can you name one person who you know who as ever been hacked for sure? Can you name one person who has ever proved that any harm came to them in any way due to cookies on their computer? Really? I get more spam than I want but I have protection against that now and I blame most of it on MSN Messenger which runs whether you want it to or not unless you have a cool little program to stop it like I do. Turn your cookie control privacy level up one notch and try to post something here and you'll get some kind of invalid post error. Yes, even this site requires cookies to function. Firewalls are good, don't get me wrong, but how would TV's Neilson ratings ever work if they couldn't validate that the TV watchers actually existed? Yes, cookies could be used for EVIL but 99.9 aren't used that way and I don't want to see you waste too much of your time clearing cookies, just to put them right back because you read this. Really! Try it. Run Ad-Aware again and you'll find another tracking cookie from here. This is all coming from someone who used to use AdAware and Spybot all the time and I decided it was a waste of time like trying to overclock Pentium 233. Damn this alcohol! My $0.02 is worth a bundle!

Not sure if either of these programs yall are talking about are nearly as good as they say they are. I know that one program will pick up stuff that the other somehow overlooks or forgets but I found this little thing very interesting. Buddy of mine decided to try the ad-aware program out thinkin it might clear up some crazy stuff his internet explore was doing so after a quick download and scan it came up with like 34 hits (25 of these were cookies). Well everything was checked and deleted. For the heck of it he decides to reboot and re-run the program one more time just to see. Well I'll be damn if it did pick up 17 more problem children (10 of these cookies). Now tell me this........why the heck would it find 17 more things wrong after it had been run before and every cookie had already been cleared out and no connecting to the internet in-between scans? I had something similar happen to me on my computer at home but the first scan was about 16....everything deleted then a quick 2nd scan shows 3 more. Don't get me wrong it's nice that a couple of groups put out programs like this but why can't this thing delete all the stuff the first go around.

Just my 2 cents on the deal and has anybody else seen something like this happen with ad-aware?

|<idcapri

P.S. I think it was the most recent version of the program considering he downloaded it the same day I did which was Monday of this week.

If I recall correctly, the readme for Ad-Aware once warned that some spyware requires the program to be run twice to get rid of it.

Personally, I'd rather not have any tracking cookies on my system at all, but I don't get bent out of shape about them either.
I do like Spybot's "immunizing" feature however. Every once in a while I visit some sort of fan site and sure enough, I get a blank window that pops up indicating that Spybot blocked yet another "bad product". I don't need any homepage hijackers, thankyou very much! Don't forget we've had at least one member of this forum who was bothered by one of those. :doubt: :|

This website does not put tracking cookies on your computer. Only the kind you want. Ad-Aware never finds anything if you go online and only visit here.

Hey Nameless, I just wanted to say that is a MEAN looking bike.
Sharp 8)

True Nameless. The cookies here aren't bad and aren't tracking cookies but if you run AdAware and come back to this site, notice how you aren't logged in anymore. Adaware grabs every cookie and calls it a tracking cookie even if it is just holding your password. I'm playing a little bit of devil's advocate here. I still have SpyBot and AdAware on my system and still run them every once in a blue moon but it hit me a while back while at a friends house who 56K and Win98 on an old box. They are actually still using IE 4.0 with no virus scan and are clueless about PC and yet the thing is 5 years old and still getting it done. No problems. This sort of supports what Maximus was saying about having more important things to do. How much time if you can add it up has been blown waiting for a system scan of some kind to finish when instead, you or I could be calling and talking to family or spending time with the kids or dogs. I think of DiggyHutMike or Mickey as we called him, He just unplugged and walked away. 2 weeks ago, I had a guy I went to MSCE school with do the exact same thing. I couldn't do it but just as I'm getting sick of trying to keep up with computer stuff at work, I'm getting tired of tweaking and seeing people who didn't and are better off in their minds for it. I'm too addicted at this point to walk away and enjoy all of you folks too much too but the spyware game has gotten very old to me already. Tracking cookie.................So long as they don't know exactly who I am, I hope they do track me. In fact they better!

Herm, I never lose my cookies. :razz:

I wonder how you have Ad-Aware set up? I have used both the smart system scan and the custom scan settings, but I have never changed any of the scanning defaults that the program comes with. I just had a look through it all for the first time today. I never bothered before. I see that there are lots of things I can play with. Some of them will duplicate the things that Spybot's "immunizing" feature do, and others are much more aggressive at rooting out spyware and "bad" products. :o
Did you adjust any of these settings? :?:

Maybe you should be lazy like me, and just let the base program do its thing! :lol:


Hey thanks for the compliment, Jarg. :)
It is a photo I took of the bike with my new digital camera back in September. I try to keep baby clean and polished at all times. It's a 1985 model. I flopped over the odometer a couple of years ago, and every once in a while when someone sees the "low" mileage on the bike; they ask me how I like my new Harley. :lol: