Defeat of rip off business practice

[ngauger]

Another useful tool I've used for many years (being in 'the trade') is 'Hijack This'.  I suppose it is a 'techs' tool, in that you have to tell it what to delete, but in some cases it's the only way, and the names in the list usually give a clue, i.e 'nasty evil little toolbar reg-clean 2014 BHO'!!
It is also handy if you know a tech, and need to send them a scan of your base system files.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/hjt/

Disclaimer: Use at your own risk!

BTW: Look out for a rather convincing Paypal phishing scam at the mo.  Paypal/financial institutions will never send requests for info directly from email links or attachments, but the one I got was on a new level of subtlety.  Fortunately for us, these scammers do struggle with the nuance of English grammar!

Never ever, ever open an attachment, or follow a link from any bank/paypal type mail, even if you do have an account with that (supposed) establishment.  If you are concerned about anything, ring the bank/Paypal, or log in to the site by typing in the URL yourself.
Apologies for teaching anyone to suck eggs here!

[ngauger]

A tip!

If I were doing things again, and for those considering more online transactions:
Always set up/link your Paypal A/c to a 'clean' email address that you use for nothing else.  You can always add that account to a folder within a 'Web mail' account (like I do).  That way you'll not miss any mail.  You'll also notice that when a scam Paypal mail arrives in your web-mail account, it's obviously spam as it has the wrong email address, and not the one linked to your Paypal account!

Also, I've found that ISP created mail accounts are generally less prone to phishing attacks than the likes of Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo etc (although   that's maybe down to the fact I use an old alias and slightly 'off the radar' to scammers?)
Net result, a peaceful night's sleep (and far too many online purchases!)