So, I had an infection. Not a real bad one. But nontheless, it was apparent and annoying.

I'm not referring to my recent sinus infection, which was also apparent and annoying. I'm referring to some serious adware. tracking101.com and da-tracking.com are two sites which have coupled their tracking cookies with some software that one can easily install. I know, I did it. I was looking for some FREE TV as we have retired our television until further notice (most likely it's return will coincide with my daughter reaching the age where she will not crawl and pull things over on herself...or if I somehow finally become financially well off enough to afford a wall-mounted unit and pay for cable on a monthly basis). I wanted to catch some NBA action on my computer and I didn't want to pay for it. That alone should have been a red flag for me. When I find something too good to be true...well you know the rest...except of course it that thing is hilarious entertainment and we're talking about free streaming FOX television from Fox.com. Anyway, I'm not sure but I'm fairly confident that one of the few free software programs that promised free tv but gave me nothing interesting and American (I mean North American, and not Canadian) and sports-related (notice I didn't say OR, I said AND...because I had all three of those...just not all three in ONE)...pretty sure it delivered unto me an ad-server I could not find or remove and it worked hand in hand with the damned adsites tracking101.com / login.tracking101.com and da-tracking.com. After over a week of the usual methods of removal I was distraught.

Finally I found a nice and somewhat helpful (up to date) tech forum online ( http://www.techsupportforum.com ) where they were obsessed with reading people's hijackthis logs...good program, but it was way more work than I wanted to deal with...I hate getting into that tech stuff...just give me a button to click and let it be removed please. Lucky for me they listed a few programs at the end of someone's thread, that helped me with my current situation. After all of this, I am now thankful that it ONLY took me a little over a week, and that it took this many years for me to have any problems.

But if YOU are one of those people who just CAN'T seem to get rid of those annoying pop-up, but apparently not technically pop-ups because the pop-up blockers don't block them, this info could be of value to you. Especially if you are dealing with login.tracking101.com and da-tracking.com ads. They seem to be the ones on the battle-front of acceptable use and legalese right now...cuz they are pushin that damned envelope with all of their might. But who am I except someone who wanted to steal LIVE network television right? Anyway, these are the 3 things that finally helped me:

• SpywareBlaster to help prevent spyware from installing in the first place.
  • Install & update SpywareBlaster with the latest definitions.
    After you have updated, click the button - enable protection for all unprotected items
• SpywareGuard to catch and block spyware before it can execute.
  
• SPYBOT - SEARCH & DESTROY
  Download and install Spybot - Search & Destroy with its TeaTimer option. This will provide realtime spyware & hijacker protection on your computer alongside your virus protection. You should also scan your computer with the program on a regular basis just as you would an antivirus software. A tutorial on installing & using this product can be found here.

UPDATE!
2 DAYS AFTER THIS POST -- this thing popped up again.  I finally had PC Guru Jeremy Colp , come to my rescue -- took him about an hour to track down the registry files and remove them from my hard drive.