URL Assistant?
mtrox
Minnesota
That's the name of the spyware that comes pre-loaded on the new Dell I'm setting up for a client. You click on "Remove" in Add/Remove programs and the screen blinks......but URL Assistant is still in the list.
Anyone know how bad this thing is?
Anyone know how bad this thing is?
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Dell loads a lot of useless crap on their computers, but none of it is actually malicious. Bunch of resource hogs, though.
This program looks like it may be of use to you.
If you try to uninstall McAfee (ironically I only uninstalled it so I could install a corporate version of McAfee) it will tell you to stop McAfee before you can uninstall it. You cannot fully stop it. One process keeps hanging on and won't let you uninstall. Finally went into the MMC and stopped all McProcesses, then used HiJackThis to uncheck the other McCraps that start up, then rebooted. Then, and only then, could I uninstall McAfee.
Pricks.
I finally left URL Assistant on there. Nothing showed up in HJT under BHO's or processes.
Tried that Thrax. About 2 or 3 times. I then opened up the McAfee panel and disabled everything. Didn't help. And there was always some McProcess that I could not kill.
No but that was on my mental list. After spending about 20 minutes on something that should have taken 5, I found a way. I would have gotten to that at some point though.
Interesting advice from Mr. McAfee. In Cntrl Pnl> Add/Remove there was only one McAfee line.....not a separate one for each module. When you click the "Remove" button you get a new window which asks you which one of the various modules you want to remove. No where does it give the advice they just gave you Trogan. So of course you just check all the boxes.
I understand why there should be a safeguard so that no piece of code can do an unattended removal of an anti-v program. But I also shouldn't have to spend half an hour trying the usual methods, then running to the forum.
Your right! It shouldn't take no more than 5 mins to uninstall.
There is only one situation where I like McAfee. When Norton is the only other option. That thing's a mess.
Actually Trogan, their enterprise versions are pretty good. If it's a small business I also like their McAfee ASAP managed anti-virus. It leaves a very small footprint and doesn't cause much trouble.
But this trashy little version they send out with Dell is almost as buggy and out-of-control as Norton.
What AV do you use, btw?
Well, the only way to reformat now days is the "ghost image" system Dell has...which is excellent by the way. But after you flash a new image you've got McAfee again. I got rid of it yesterday. I would have gone to safe mode but I wanted to play with it and see if there were other ways to do it for future referrence. Now I don't entirely remember how I did it.
I use the Managed version of McAfee I was talking about. If you haven't seen it go to www.McAfeeASAP.com. A small business can go to a web page and see the status of all of his workstations at a glance. Besides, it seems to be a smaller, less buggy program than the retail thing they sell. But then I have ZA for a firewall and use SpyBot Tea-timer thing to tell me when some hijacker is trying to change my registry.
Sounds like a good idea!
Ditto!
Let it be noted that the disk will be a Dell windows disc... I had to fight tooth and nail to get them to send me a freaking full windows disc when I got my mom's Dell... and yes I paid the $10 also... hopefully they have changed there ways.
Tell me if I'm wrong Sledge, but I haven't noticed a difference. When I've rebuilt with a Dell disk in the past (and it's been a while now) I got a fresh XP with none of the Dell paid advertising crap.
when i got my dell lappy ( which by the way runs like a scolded dog, after a few tweaks
but man, having all that crap on the machine made it run like a p2 with 128mb of ram.