unwanted downloads

[hakanoa]

Whilst site cruising had searchengine Dogpile download un-initiated by me, first realisation was toolbar alteration and only able to conduct searchs using Dogpile. I use XP so activated system restore, now everything OK. Q: how would one stop this happening ?, or is this spawning process one of the joys of internet surfing ?

[Greg S]

Hi. Unfortunately it is one of the many perils of the Internet - it's a rude world out there. A simple solution to it occuring again is to install a firewall - Nortons Internet Security is probably the best, but an excellent option is Zonelabs' ZoneAlarm - free for the personal edition. More information about how and why it will cover you is widely available from previous articles on this site, or an exhaustive look can be found at www.grc.com.

[Biggles]

Although you can also avoid a lot of this by setting higher security options in IE.

[tweak\'e]

also make sure your windows updates are p to date. also office as ms kindly intergrates os, browser and office all together.

also just commen sence. i know more people who have been fooled into ok'ing something to run on their pc than malicious downloads.