Really need computer help

[Randallw]

Thermodyne, should I really replace my hosts file with yours?. Mine is only 2kb and yours is 263kb.

[Fyron]

Thermo's looks to be blocking a lot of malware and ad server domains.

If you install Spybot (best anti-spyware), you can usually lock out the hosts file from further changes.

[Thermodyne]

Randallw said:
Thermodyne, should I really replace my hosts file with yours?. Mine is only 2kb and yours is 263kb.

It blocks a lot of malware sites. Which helps to protect you from their loader programs and the redirects that result. Down side is that a lot of adds on respectable sites wont load. Which is fine by me!

[Randallw]

When you say it blocks the site do you mean nothing happens or that a message pops up?, because my software spots each attempt, but the message is as annoying as the ads. Anyway I just installed sp2 (yeah I know my fault for not doing it before) and I'll try spybot. I should point out some of the adds are just an ad in the middle of my screen and others opens a new browser window to their website. I think I'm actually getting somewhere though. If I fail I can at least tell my self I did everything I could.

Edit: I don't know is this is funny or not, but sp2 was blocking spybot from being downloaded

[Arkcon]

Here's a link to a page describing Window's services, which one's you ought to disable, and how to do it. {web page} You'll find the Messenger Service is one on that list. Usually, Windows XP Service Packs disable the Messanger Service, but you might want to poke around anyway.

[Randallw]

I think I managed to turn off the right one then, as it said the sp automatically turns it off.

[Renegade 13]

This is the sort of thing that makes me very happy that I'm the only one who even touches my computer.

Sorry I can't offer any assistance, but while I'm not computer illiterate, I'm also not as skilled as the other people here obviously are.