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OG Xbox Forums => Xbox Online Gaming (Xbox Live, Xlink, and others) => Other Online Gaming Options (Gamespy, etc.) => Topic started by: streaker68 on June 01, 2004, 11:40:00 AM

Title: Increasing Your Bandwidth For Better Online Gaming
Post by: streaker68 on June 01, 2004, 11:40:00 AM

What is spyware and Adware and where do we get it?
Ok as a computer technician I see alot of things on people's computers and one that I see the most is SPYWARE and ADWARE. Many of you already know what this is but I'll go ahead and explain for those that do not. Spyware and adware are like low level viruses, they come from the internet in the form of free games/programs they're also in most of the cookies in your temporary internet files. If you read these programs EULA's they usually say something about monitoring and ads. You can also get them from clicking one of those grey boxes on a website that asks you a question (I recommend clicking the X to close those instead of yes or no). Spyware sends information about what you do on the internet to a company for marketing research, adware creates "popups" and makes them appear to be coming for the internet sites you are browsing. Also adware will come in the form of "search bars" changing of homepages etc. Spyware and adware destroy bandwidth and can severely effect playing online games.

Understanding MSCONFIG
If you have never scanned for spyware and adware YOU HAVE IT!!!  Here are the steps to remove it. First goto the "start" menu and goto "run", now type "msconfig", then goto the startup tab. What you see is a list of programs that feel they need to be running all the time from the moment your computer starts up. Basically you need to look at the "command" column to figure out what programs are running, then you need to disable anything that doesn't need to be running all the time. I usually just have my antivirus/firewall run and disable everything else. If you are having trouble deciding whether you need something you can simply do a google search for its "startup item" name to help figure out what it is and whether you need it.

Scanning for Spyware and Adware.
We use 2 free programs at my work "Spybot S&D" and "ad-aware 6.0" which are completely legitimate. There are several more but these do a good job. Heres the link for Ad-aware 6.0, also grab the newest reference list for it from the same page. Here's the link for Spybot - Search & Destroy. These scan your computer for spyware and adware and remove them at you discretion. I suggest letting them remove everything they find.

Preventing spyware and adware
The methods I described are retroactive not proactive. My best recommendation is to STOP USING INTERNET EXPLORER, or any other browser that allows cookies. I recommend Mozilla Firefox. Also don't install anything from the internet that you are not sure about. Remember NOTHING IS FREE (except maybe XBC). If I missed anything feel free to ad to the discussion.

This post has been edited by streaker68 on Jun 3 2004, 05:28 AM

Title: Increasing Your Bandwidth For Better Online Gaming
Post by: SolidJoe on June 02, 2004, 12:37:00 PM

Internet Explorer is perfectly safe...most of the spyware/adware problems are caused by the user, not the software. Many users simply click yes when it asks them to install something, or when a popup ad comes up saying "You have spyware installed! Click here to remove it!", they blindly follow along and install more malware on to their system. This isn't IE's fault, this is the user's fault. The first step towards a malware free system is user intervention. Users have to be educated about what is probably a harmful thing to their system, and then it has to be protected in the back end with the right software. Always have Windows updated with the latest updates (either using the automatic updates or doing it yourself, which I like to do), install Spybot S&D, and make sure to use its bad protection blocker. This blocks about 2000 malicious ActiveX programs that you do not want installed. It also blocks some "bad pages", and does a decent job of this. Another great program is Webroot's SpySweeper. It's not free, but it is nice to do a disinfection if necessary, as it tends to get some programs that others don't. If you're really having trouble with spyware/viruses/adware, you should take the infected hard drive out of the system, and put it into a usb enclosure and scan it that way. It removes all of the dll and exe files that the adware needs, so that its helpless and you can go through and remove all of its registry entries for a thorough disinfection. Here are some good online virus scanners:

http://www.pandasoftware.com (Panda Antivirus)
http://www.bitdefender.com (BitDefender)
http://www.ravantivirus.com (RAV Antivirus)
http://www.trendmicro.com (TrendMicro)

Have fun.

Title: Increasing Your Bandwidth For Better Online Gaming
Post by: streaker68 on June 02, 2004, 10:17:00 PM

I just recommend getting away from internet explorer because it allows cookies and popups (including the ones that try to install crap) which are a major source of spyware/adware. I don't get any of that crap since I switched over and its just a better browser in general. But you definitely made some good points. The problem is mostly that alot of people don't know to check for this stuff, and I'm just trying to help spread the word.

This post has been edited by streaker68 on Jun 3 2004, 05:19 AM

Title: Increasing Your Bandwidth For Better Online Gaming
Post by: Psilocybe on June 03, 2004, 04:18:00 PM

yeah most programs that install the piggyback software such as the adware and spyware are directed toward IE
i stick with my opera and i'm set

Title: Increasing Your Bandwidth For Better Online Gaming
Post by: streaker68 on June 08, 2004, 12:24:00 PM

bump

Title: Increasing Your Bandwidth For Better Online Gaming
Post by: Psilocybe on June 08, 2004, 12:50:00 PM

why?

Title: Increasing Your Bandwidth For Better Online Gaming
Post by: streaker68 on June 08, 2004, 10:01:00 PM

Because I felt like it.

Title: Increasing Your Bandwidth For Better Online Gaming
Post by: PENiX on June 19, 2004, 06:55:00 PM

About it being the users fault is untrue.

Im really sick of spyware and i find myself running ad-aware every 4-5 days

I was on a website that i totally trusted, then it sayd something in the status bar about loading a .cgi file (i know what that filetype is, but i was suspicious)

Next thing i know i have spyware up the wazoo!

I use firefox sometimes... but i kinda like ie better

Title: Increasing Your Bandwidth For Better Online Gaming
Post by: death_driver_911 on June 23, 2004, 09:26:00 PM

firefox all the way!

Title: Increasing Your Bandwidth For Better Online Gaming
Post by: frankgomez75 on June 28, 2004, 10:09:00 AM

FIREFOX ROX!

Title: Increasing Your Bandwidth For Better Online Gaming
Post by: hack on June 29, 2004, 07:53:00 PM

Some other easy and obvious steps to increase your bandwidth in XBC is too...


1. Do not use P2P programs, like Kazaa or whatever

2. Make sure other people aren't using your internet connection

3. Select the option "Auto disconnect from global chat" in XBC's "General Options"

Title: Increasing Your Bandwidth For Better Online Gaming
Post by: Mattssogay on July 02, 2004, 09:18:00 AM

QUOTE (SolidJoe @ Jun 2 2004, 02:34 PM)

Internet Explorer is perfectly safe...

 Thats just laughable... IE has GAPING security holes.

Title: Increasing Your Bandwidth For Better Online Gaming
Post by: Mattssogay on July 02, 2004, 11:26:00 AM

Check this out
And This

Title: Increasing Your Bandwidth For Better Online Gaming
Post by: streaker68 on July 07, 2004, 07:21:00 AM

people need to stop assuming MS products are safe and secure. Its just sad that MS uses linux servers for MS.com, and they expect you to pay thousands of dollars for their crappy software.