re: spyware cookie name@~~local~~
Wednesday, March 2, 2005 at 3:01 am
Windows Me Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Ale
(16 messages posted)
Thanks for the suggestions guys (and the amusing duel interlude!).
To clarify, Adaware finds only one cookie but it gets hundreds of 'hits' a day implying
it's registering almost every keystroke and mouse click.
I have found some other reports of this but ~~local~~ is too broad a search parameter
to determine how wide the problem is or even if it's a problem.
I have tried all but the WIN.INI suggestion so far and touch wood I'm clean.
Let's see if it's still the same at the end of the day.
Thanks
On Tuesday, March 1, 2005 at 11:54 am, Jack Gulley wrote:
>I have never seen a cookie with that name before. But it sounds like the type
>that some Browser Extensions put in your cookie folder. Often these and AD sites
>place a cookie with your "local" information that identifies where you live (like
>a ZIP CODE or AREA CODE) so that marketer's can target you with "local" ADs. This
>is why Ad-Aware SE flags it. So it should be deleted each time you run Ad-Aware
SE,
>but it will just keep coming back. It is possible that every "AD" on each web page
>could be puttion such a cookie on your system.
> It is not clear from the wording of your post if you are only finding one cookie
>with that name each time, or if you are finding thousands of cookies by that name
>(which would be a major problem).
> One possible problem I see. Ad-Aware SE uses the WININIT.INI file to delete cookies,
>and cookies are not really removed from your machine until you reboot. So there
could
>be something wrong there, if they come back by just rebooting. Some sort of "hijack
>program" could also be doing the same thing.
> Try the following: Reboot your system and do not open a Browser. Just run Ad-Aware
>SE and delete all that it finds. Then reboot your system and run Ad-Aware SE again
>and see if it finds the same cookie(s). If the cookie is back already, there is
something
>putting it there or the WININIT.INI process is broken on your machine. After booting,
>look in the C:\Windows\ folder and see if there is a WININIT.INI file. There should
>be a WININIT.BAK file. If you still have the WININIT.INI file, then something is
>wrong with your system. Just delete the WININIT.INI file and then make sure you
do
>have a WININIT.EXE program file in that folder. Extract a clean copy from the system
>WIN_17.CAB file if it is missing or not working correctly. Some of the CoolWebSearch
>browser hijacker versions damage or remove the WININIT.EXE file.
> You might also want to run DELINDEX.BAT to remove all cookies from your
>system and give it a good cleaning.
> ![]()
>alt="Windows ME fixes" src="http://users.adelphia.net/~jgulley/me/me_icon.gif" border="0">page
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All messages in this thread [show all]
 |  |  | Also, (joe: Tue, Mar 1, 2005, 8:07 am) |
| | |  | re: Also, (Stormblazer: Wed, Mar 2, 2005, 11:58 pm) |
| | | | |  | re: Also, (Stormblazer: Thu, Mar 10, 2005, 6:39 pm) |
| | | re: spyware cookie name@~~local~~ (Ale: Wed, Mar 2, 2005, 3:01 am) |
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